![]() The agency responds, either producing the records or claiming that the requested records are exempt from public disclosure under a Florida statutory exemption permitting the agency to withhold all or a portion of the records. “How should it work? A citizen makes a public record request to a public agency. Peterson’s letter also explains how things theoretically should work in such cases: And by the way, the agency uses taxpayer dollars to fight about the records request.” Not only do records requesters have to bear the expense of hiring an attorney, but the legal burden of proof is also arguably flipped from the agency to the person requesting records. These types of lawsuits force not only newspapers, but also everyday citizens, into court to defend their constitutional right of access to public records. “Rather than respond to the paper’s public record request, FLVS filed a civil lawsuit, called a declaratory judgment action, against the paper and its former lawyer. On January 8, the Orlando Sentinel published a letter by Barbara Petersen, the president of the First Amendment Foundation about what happened after the Orlando Sentinel requested public documents from the FLVS: Suffice to say, this is not what happened. Since FLSV is a state-run online school, the Orlando Sentinel naturally had a reasonable expectation that the documents would be released. In an attempt to shed light on the ongoing disputes at FLVS, the Orlando Sentinel did what any news outlet would do under the same circumstances: They made requests for public documents concerning the controversy, so their reporters might examine FLSV’s actions and inform readers. Orlando Sentinel on Defensive After Requesting Public Documents from Florida Virtual School (FLVS) If the problems at FLVS’s have been slow to come to the surface and garnered little media attention outside Orlando where the school’s office is based, it may have something to do with how the school has negotiated access to public documents pertaining to its current disputes. Over the past year, Florida Virtual School (FLVS), Florida’s statewide, public online secondary school, has dealt with a massive data breach, a series of ongoing disputes with former employees, and several allegations against the school’s former attorney.
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