By HOLLY GASKILL
The Sheriff’s Office will soon begin charging a fee for public law enforcement recordings requests.
Where this footage was available upon request for free, the department will charge $50 for videos shorter than 30 minutes, $100 for videos 30-60 minutes, and $150 for videos longer than 60 minutes. This information was outlined in Ordinance No. 2022-18, approved 3-0 by the county commissioners.
County Attorney Colin Andrews, who presented the ordinance to the commissioners, said this fee was associated with the cost of preparing and copying the recordings.
“The problem is right now that (Holliday) has to eat that entire cost,” Andrews said. “The state allows for us to charge for it.”
These fees will then be deposited into the Body Camera Recording Fee Fund, benefiting the department’s technology maintenance.
Requests for footage will be made through a written form, requiring the person requesting to provide their reasonable interest in the footage, the date and approximate time of the law enforcement activity, the specific location and at least one person involved other than the officer. Recordings can be requested from either officer body cameras or car dash cameras.
Following a request, the department must provide copies or allow the requesting person to make copies within 21 days.
“I think it prevents people from just doing it for the sake of doing it,” Commissioner Jeff Stringer said.
This ordinance will be in effect 30 days after formal public notice.
Andrews also presented Ordinance 2022-17, adding fees for print requests from the Wells County GIS office.
Exact fees will vary based upon the requested size of the print; customized map projects will cost $25 per hour spent on the project. Additionally, requests for electronic GIS data layer sales will cost $200 per GIS data layer.
These fees will then go into the Electronic Map Generation Fund under the Area Plan Commission for the maintenance of the system.
Effective immediately, the ordinance also outlines exceptions when requests are for educational purposes or for public agencies that will share data with the county.
holly@news-banner.com
