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Open Records Victory!
Records Dept. Cuts Fee for Computer Records By 90%
By Ed Goppelt
Monday, 04/21/03
(1050929197213)
The Records Dept. has cut its fees for land ownership records in computer form from $400 per month to around $40, a reduction of 90%. I had wanted to post up-to-date info. on real estate transactions on Hallwatch, but could not afford the Dept.'s $400 fee for monthly
updates to its Recorders Index Extract computer file. Historical deed records from 1976-2002 are already available on Hallwatch. View an example.
A great deal of a community's wealth is tied up in its real estate. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the real estate pages are easily the most heavily used on Hallwatch. People want to know who owns what so that they can contact the owner of a vacant lot, look for an affordable house in another neighorhood, or see if they're being overassessed.
Hallwatch learned of the price cut at a meeting held April 15, 2003 at the City Law Dept. City lawyer Mike Eichert told Hallwatch that based on his research he estimated it would cost the Dept. about $37.50 per month to provide the desired information via ftp. According to Pennsylvania's Right to Know Act City agencies may not charge more than their actual cost to copy public records. ftp, short for file transfer protocol, is a way of transferring files over the Internet.
The meeting and agreement on price come about six months after Hallwatch's initial request for the records. Present for Hallwatch were public interest lawyer Mike Churchill, open records advocate John Famularo and myself; representing the City were Records Commissioner Joan Decker, Eichert, who heads the City's commercial litigation unit, and City lawyer Joseph Bradica.
Despite weeks of promises by City lawyers, a meeting was only scheduled after Councilmembers Rizzo and Cohen threatened to cut the Dept.'s budget. At a recent Council hearing, these two very different men communicated their shared conviction that all Philadelphians, and not just a select group of insiders, should have easy access to public records.
At issue was the Records Dept.'s Philadox web site, which is not open to the public but which 50 private companies use to look up land ownership records including deed images. Although the companies receive this valuable service free of charge, the Records Dept. wanted to charge Hallwatch $400 monthly for the same records on CD. Other Councilmembers supported opening City records to citizens included Councilmembers Ortiz, Nutter, and Tasco. Read the transcript of the Council hearing.
Initially, I asked for these records because I wanted to offer Hallwatch users the ability to look up property information without having to go to City Hall. Ultimately, the effort became about something much larger:
The right of all Philadelphians to obtain public records, including those stored on computer, at reasonable cost.
I would never have gotten these records without the help of many people. I'd like to thank the following persons in particular for their help: