An Oxford County commissioner wants to “pull the plug” on the way officials respond to Freedom of Access Act requests, which cost the county $37,042 in 2025.

Lisa Keim, chairperson of the board of commissioners, said the cost ranged between $70 to $350 an hour for legal assistants or attorneys to answer the requests. County authorities also answer requests.

The FOAA “grants the people of this state a broad right of access to public records while protecting legitimate governmental interests and the privacy rights of individual citizens.  The act also ensures the accountability of the government to the citizens of the state by requiring public access to the meetings of public bodies.”

The county hires lawyers to answer the majority of requests. Keim said that one “cookie cutter” request cost $80 for an email to be sent back. The county is “paying through the nose to do that,” she said.

“I would like to change our process,” she said July 21. “We are not obligated to hire someone to handle FOAA requests.”

“I would like to pull the plug on this process,” she said, adding that there are no penalties if the county has a backlog of requests.

Sheriff Chris Wainwright said a lot of public information requests come into the Sheriff’s Office, it could be for different reasons, including crashes, traffic stops, and defendants in a criminal case.

Administration handles the requests it can and sends out the more complex requests.

County Administrator Zane Loper said he is copied on the requests and handles some access act requests.

Loper said he gets requests from people who want to know about building permits or code enforcement issues. He sends those requests back telling the writer that the county doesn’t handle building permits or code enforcement and tells them to check with municipalities.

“Sometimes it takes two or three times,” he said. “Some are easy, some are more complex.”

Commissioner Timothy Turner said he agreed with Keim that the process needs to be handled differently.

Loper said there is $125,000 budgeted in the legal account this year. To date, $21,817 has been spent, with the bulk of it used for information requests.

He plans to look at what can be done and who can be tasked with handling the requests.

Keim said maybe they could look at a local attorney and not a big firm to help handle them.

Loper said they could go out to bid on that process to try and reduce the cost. He will gather information for the next meeting in August.

Androscoggin County and Franklin County handle requests received in-house.

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