4/27/1993 - Laserfiche WebLink

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M The Board indicated their agreement to have staff look into our ordinances regarding this matter and come back with a recommendation. CHILDREN'S SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE (Withdrawn for discussion at a later date.) PUBLIC DISCLOSURE MATTERS Commissioner Tippin advised that he added this to the Agenda after talking to his neighbor who was surprised to find that someone else had obtained from public records a complete set of plans of his new beautiful home. Commissioner Tippin strongly questioned whether that should be allowed, particularly in these days of high technology thievery with someone knowing the location of your security measures. He would like the County Attorney to have permission to look into it with the thought that if we cannot circumvent it, perhaps there can be some notification to the property owner that someone has obtained a set of their plans. Attorney Collins explained that basically the situation is that any document received becomes a public record and is open to inspection and copying by anybody. The County cannot put restrictions on who gets that material unless there is an exemption from the public records law in Florida Statutes and that would require an act of the legislature. We could, as a matter of policy and at Board direction, notify an owner that a copy of his plans has been made. We cannot, however, require that someone identify themselves when requesting copies of plans. State law says that any person who pays the fees gets the records. If their name is known or they make that available to us, we could notify property owners that their plans have been copied. The other side of this is that the architect has been paid considerable money by the property owner for a unique set of plans and someone else could come in and have the benefit of them. However, he felt that is more of a civil matter that the architect could pursue. Apart from notifying people of who got copies of their plans, there is very little we can do at a local level. The Board may want to consider referring this to the Legislative Delegation because some of the issues that have been raised are personal safety and confidentiality. The legislature may consider exempting or at least giving some additional protection so that you know who got the records in the event of a break-in. Steve Payton, 625 SW 34th Avenue, was very concerned that anyone can get a copy of someone else's home, especially when you 51 APP 2 71993 BOOK 89 F�Ac40 2