HCPSS MPIA Request #2018-033
Requested Information
Mrs. Vaillancourt has repeatedly and publicly stated she was approached by Mr. Blom once she became a BOE member. He showed her a 6 inch file which she believed contained comments she had made in places like Howardpubliced, explorehoward and other news media. This is a rather large amount of material that would have taken quite a bit of time and energy to research and copy. My understanding from Mrs. Vailancourt is Blom's secretary was involved in the gathering of this file. I am requesting the names of everyone involved in compiling this file or who contributed information for it to include all emails and other correspondence related to it. I am requesting a list of all HCP$$ who were aware of the existence of this file and any supporting emails or other correspondence. I am requesting the name of who authorized this file. Lastly and most importantly this was not free, lawyers are not cheap, time is money and I am requesting the cost to research, compile, maintain, store, retrieve through PIA requests or any other cost incurred in the creation or existence of this file.
Response Notes
Under the MPIA process, and as advised in the Fourteenth Edition of the Maryland Public Information Act Manual created by Maryland’s Office of the Attorney General, an agency is only obligated to produce existing records and is not required to answer questions that would “create records to satisfy a PIA request.” Furthermore, because we have been unable to locate the file itself, a search of all HCPSS records or correspondence for specific answers to the above – presuming it could have been over a number of years and between a number of current and/or former employees – would be an unreasonably broad request.
In response to your specific request for costs related to retrieval of such a file through PIA requests, a search of existing HCPSS MPIA files going back several years did not result in any requests for a similar file.
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personally identifiable information of a student) or personal, defamatory
and malicious content removed at the discretion of the school
system.
**Responses containing legally protected information available
only to the person of interest are omitted from the above
report.
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