Should the city of Homer "provide full and free access of the public to municipal records and information?" Or, should it "provide prompt and reasonable public access to nonconfidential public records according to law?"

Those two perspectives, and a shift in the policy and intent of Homer's city code governing disclosure of pubic records, will be considered Monday night at its regular meeting when the Homer City Council considers Ordinance 08-25(A), revisions to the city's public records laws. A public hearing on the proposed ordinance also will be held.

"The purpose of this Draconian legislation is to keep what are supposed to be public documents from being disclosed to hide illegal or otherwise improper activities of city officials," said Frank Griswold, a longtime critic of city activities, and a frequent filer of records requests.

Not so, said city council member Dennis Novak, who introduced the ordinance.

"There is not a philosophical change in regards to a willingness to release public records," he said. "There is a more specific wording with regards to policy, intent and process here."

Former city attorney Gordon Tans wrote most of the ordinance in response to concerns he and some council members had with the existing ordinance. Tans rewrote the ordinance to reflect a similar ordinance in Kenai Peninsula Borough code. The state of Alaska also has a statute regarding public records requests.

"How we manage our records, how we handle requests of information, what information we have readily available some of that isn't clearly defined," Novak said.

Griswold had concerns with the proposed ordinance's change to its preamble, the introduction that once read "intent" and now reads "policy." At the ordinance's first reading last month, Griswold was the only member of the public to speak against it.

"It is apparently no longer the intent of the city to 'provide full and free access of the public to municipal records,'" Griswold said.

"People should be very disturbed about that," he said last month.

The ordinance spells out what information cannot be released to the public. All other records are considered open for inspection. Information proposed to be exempt includes:

* Communications between the city attorney and any city official or employee;

* The work product of any city attorney;

* All personnel and payroll records;

* Records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes;

* Medical records concerning any person; and

* Names, addresses or identifying information of people who have used the Homer Public Library.

One change in the ordinance regards payroll records. If passed, citizens or the press couldn't find out if a city employee padded overtime pay, for example. The current ordinance isn't clear on this point, reading that the city shall not be required to disclose "payroll records that reveal financial information about any specific individual." The new ordinance says "the payroll records and compensation actually paid to an official or employee shall not be disclosed."

City personnel director Sheri Hobbs said that language is a clarification to the existing ordinance, and is similar to statutes for state employees.

Compensation rates authorized for a city official or employee can be disclosed, as can aggregate amounts say, the total overtime paid in a department.

"There's not an intent to shut down the public's right to information, or more importantly, to not know how the city's spending their money," Novak said.

The proposed ordinance adds disciplinary records as an exempt category, information not clearly defined as being in a personnel file in the current ordinance.

The proposed ordinance also clarifies how records requests should be done. A citizen making a broad, sweeping request for information would be asked to make a more specific request.

"We don't have time to go on wild goose chases requests that are very broad and would take a lot of staff time," said Homer City Manager Walt Wrede.

"There needs to be some balance here," Novak said. "Somebody comes in here and says 'I want to see everything for the last six months.' I don't have a guideline."

The city manager is given some latitude under the proposed ordinance in writing regulations governing records requests, although any regulations the manager proposes would have to be approved by the city council.

Griswold didn't mince words in his opposition to the ordinance.

"Anyone who votes for this ordinance should be tarred, feathered and voted out of office," he said.

The full proposed ordinance showing changes and deletions is available at the city clerk's office or online at clerk.ci.homer.ak.us/ordinance/ord0825.htm.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.