SHEILA A. MATHEWS :::
Despite complying with demands from the city of Griffin requiring prepayment of estimated charges for Open Records requests, public records are still not being produced within the parameters of the law.
The GRIP Publisher Sheila Mathews on Wednesday, Oct. 3, paid $107.33 in estimated charges for four such requests. Responsive records should have been produced no later than the beginning of the work day Tuesday, Oct. 9. Those records have not yet been produced.
The Georgia Open Records Act (ORA) requires agencies to produce records within three business days, however no response to the four prepaid requests has been received.
In response to a Friday inquiry regarding the city’s noncompliance, Teresa Watson, who serves as an assistant Open Records officer, stated, “I should have all four responses completed by 4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 15.”
The ORA further states, “In any instance where records are unavailable within three business days of receipt of the request, and responsive records exist, the agency shall, within such time period, provide the requester with a description of such records and a timeline for when the records will be available for inspection or copying and provide the responsive records or access thereto as soon as practicable.”
The city of Griffin also did not comply with the provision of the Open Records Act that mandates a description of records be provided.
The GRIP 
I am no expert when it comes to CoG and all of that, but seems like their not going to comply. Is there some way maybe you can bring it to a senator’s or congressman for this area, such like Drew Fergeson? It is interesting that CoG is refusing a citizen’s rights. That is not fair government and they certainly should not be doing this in all goodness and fairness. Usually when you smell smoke in my opinion there is fire, and I hate to tell you to leave it alone, as you are a good reporter, but there is a reason you’re rights are being disrespected in this town and it’s because this town and it’s government are sh_t. I have written about this in letters to the editor. The government in this town only want to see to their needs and its scr_w everyone else. I hate to tell you that, but we are all barking at the wrong people trying to get things over turned in this city with its government. We need to be writing our congressmen to get any actions across a city / district.