GRAMA bills pass out of committee — with changes

Three bills that would change the access to and cost of public records, including e-mail communications with lawmakers, moved forward Thursday after the sponsors conceded to amend the measures.

In the House, the Government Operations Committee passed HB12, which regulates electronic communications, especially e-mail, under the Government Records Access Management Act.

The committee amended the bill, which says email between an elected official and a citizen could be made public if either party agreed to release it, so that e-mails and other electronic communications among state and local government officials will be accessible through GRAMA, except communications involving state lawmakers.

The amendment was reluctantly supported by sponsoring Rep. Douglas Aagard, R-Kaysville, who admitted that "without it, this bill will not pass."

The sponsor of the amendment, Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, said state legislators make so many decisions in a limited amount of time that many informal conversations are done through email out of necessity. But removing local officials from the exemption is reasonable since local decisions are worked out over longer periods of time, and e-mail communication is more formal.

"I think the intent is to allow the free flow of information when we're working on bills, so we can work through things. We also have our time constraints, and our ability to communicate is limited so we may use e-mail a lot," he said. "But on a county and city level . . .the current (GRAMA regulations) are more transparent."

Otherwise, the bill remained pretty close to the intent of the GRAMA Task Force, which spent the past year drafting multiple changes to the law.

Another bill sponsored by Aagard, HB28, passed the committee 7-3, which prohibits counties from charging fair market value for information it provides to the public. Originally, the bill allowed counties to charge fair market prices if the information was more than just raw data, such as a searchable database developed by the county.

SB15 passed the Senate after undergoing major changes. Initially, the bill didn't require government agencies to provide information that was published elsewhere. Under the amended bill, however, the agency will have to provide that publication.

Also, sponsoring Sen. David Thomas, R-South Weber, agreed to let disputed records requests be appealed to either the State Records Committee or state court, if both parties agree.

Many of the changes to the GRAMA bills were the result of lobbying by the Utah Media Coalition, which includes the Deseret Morning News and other media outlets. To help the with their lobbying efforts, the UMC has retained two professional lobbyists during the legislative session.

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com