Data Request - City of Pine City, MN

Copy Costs – Members of the Public

The City of Pine City charges members of the public for copies of government data. These charges are authorized under Minnesota Statutes, Section 13.03, subdivision 3(c). You must pay for the copies before we will give them to you.
The charge for most other types of copies, when a charge is not set by statue or rule, is the actual cost of searching for and retrieving the data, and making the copies or electronically transmitting the data (e.g. sending the data by email).
In determining the actual cost of making copies, we factor in employee time, the cost of materials onto which we are copying the data (paper, CD, DVD, etc.), and mailing costs (if any). If your request is for copies of data that we cannot reproduce ourselves, such as photographs, we will charge you the actual cost we must pay an outside vendor for the copies.
The cost of employee time to search for data, retrieve data, and make copies is $40.00 per hour after the first hour.
A summary of costs for copies, fax and research are defined in the City of Pine City Fee Schedule which is adopted by the City Council annually and is available for review at City Hall.

How We Respond to a Data Request

Upon receiving your request, we will work to process it.

If we do not have the data, we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible.
If we have the data, but the data are not public, we will notify you in writing as soon as reasonably possible and state which specific law says the data are not public.
If we have the data, and the data are public, we will respond to your request appropriately and promptly, within a reasonable amount of time by doing one of the following:

Arrange a date, time, and place to inspect the data, for free, if your request is to look at the data, or
Provide you with copies of the data as soon as reasonably possible. You may choose to pick up your copies, or we will mail or fax them to you. If you want us to send you the copies, you will need to provide us with an address or fax number. We will provide electronic copies (such as email or CD-ROM) upon request if we keep the data in electronic format.

If you do not understand some of the data (technical terminology, abbreviations, or acronyms), please let us know. We will give you an explanation if you ask.

The Data Practices Act does not require us to create or collect new data in response to a data request if we do not already have the data, or to provide data in a specific form or arrangement if we do not keep the data in that form or arrangement. (For example, if the data you request are on paper only, we are not required to create electronic documents to respond to your request.) If we agree to create data in response to your request, we will work with you on the details of your request, including cost and response time.

In addition, the Data Practices Act does not require us to answer questions that are not requests for data.