From: John McMillan
To: jahnna.ward@texasattorneygeneral.gov
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 5:39:34 PM CDT
Subject: 4-17-19 reply to Travis County's 'adjusted' estimate
To: Assistant Attorney General of Texas Jahnna Ward, Education and Enforcement Section, Open Records Division, Office of the Attorney General, P.O. Box 12548, Austin, TX 78711-2548. Office phone: (512) 463-2100.
April 17, 2019
Dear Assistant Attorney General of Texas Ward,
Thank you for confirming for me on the telephone yesterday that you have, in fact, received a copy of the most recent cost-estimate letter to me that was e-mailed to me this week by a Travis County official on behalf of the Travis County District Attorney's Office.
I also thank you for politely reminding me on the telephone yesterday that I have the option of submitting to you a follow-up letter in which I dispute the Travis County Attorney's "adjusted" cost estimate. That "revised" cost estimate, I might add, was in response to your April 10 ruling on a recent Open Records complaint of mine against the Travis County District Attorney's Office.
That April 10 ruling from you specifically related to my November 28, 2018-dated e-mail Open Records request to the DA's Office here in Austin. That Open Records request from me was focused on six respective and specifically cited high-ranking officials of the Travis County District Attorney's Office and me, with the time period having been limited to the approximately two-year period from January 2017 through late November of 2018.
Ms. Ward, I would like to respectfully point out that even after your ruling, the Travis County Attorney's Office is continuing to request that I pay the Travis County DA's Office $103.50 in advance for any and all requested documents.
To: Assistant Attorney General of Texas Jahnna Ward, Education and Enforcement Section, Open Records Division, Office of the Attorney General, P.O. Box 12548, Austin, TX 78711-2548. Office phone: (512) 463-2100.
April 17, 2019
Dear Assistant Attorney General of Texas Ward,
Thank you for confirming for me on the telephone yesterday that you have, in fact, received a copy of the most recent cost-estimate letter to me that was e-mailed to me this week by a Travis County official on behalf of the Travis County District Attorney's Office.
I also thank you for politely reminding me on the telephone yesterday that I have the option of submitting to you a follow-up letter in which I dispute the Travis County Attorney's "adjusted" cost estimate. That "revised" cost estimate, I might add, was in response to your April 10 ruling on a recent Open Records complaint of mine against the Travis County District Attorney's Office.
That April 10 ruling from you specifically related to my November 28, 2018-dated e-mail Open Records request to the DA's Office here in Austin. That Open Records request from me was focused on six respective and specifically cited high-ranking officials of the Travis County District Attorney's Office and me, with the time period having been limited to the approximately two-year period from January 2017 through late November of 2018.
Ms. Ward, I would like to respectfully point out that even after your ruling, the Travis County Attorney's Office is continuing to request that I pay the Travis County DA's Office $103.50 in advance for any and all requested documents.
I maintain that your own signed April 10 ruling clearly stated that the DA's Office "may not charge for time required to redact (certain types of) information..."
I also maintain that your own signed April 10 ruling clearly determined that the Travis County DA's Office cannot legally charge me for "organizing" the responsive e-mails that the DA's Office sends to me.
To quote directly from your April 10 official ruling letter:
"The district attorney's office states it may be necessary to convert e-mails to PDF to redact confidential information. Upon review, we find the tasks of gathering, compiling, preparing the e-mails for release, and redacting confidential information qualify as labor.
Accordingly, we find the district attorney's office may generally charge $15.00 per hour to complete these tasks.
"However, the district attorney's office has failed to explain why it is necessary to organize the e-mails before providing them to the requestor (John Kevin McMillan of Austin District 10). Accordingly, we find this task does not meet the definition of labor, and the district attorney's office may not charge labor for the time necessary to complete this task...."
I am very hopeful that you will agree with me that in view of these legal determinations from yourself, the Travis County District Attorney's Office should reduce the total financial amount being sought from me.
Finally, I wish to emphasize that I myself do not have any criminal-conviction record. Furthermore, the Austin Police Department has never at any time ever once arrested any person and charged that individual with having allegedly committed a felony crime that violated my own legal rights.
I might add that the Austin Police Department has consistently informed me over a multi-decade period here in Austin that APD does not have any factual evidence that any individual has ever wronged me at any time in alleged violation of the state penal code.
I maintain that it should therefore have been very easy for the DA's Office here in Austin to quickly, and without any labor costs being charged to me, reply (if true) that that DA's office does not have any documents responsive to my November 28, 2018-dated Open Records request.
If, on the contrary, the DA's Office has generated any recent e-mail communications criticizing any possible alleged failure of any member of the Austin Police Department to arrest any crime suspect and charge that individual with having allegedly perpetrated a crime victimizing me, the public release of those documents could perform a valuable public service.
Since I myself am a low-income single adult senior citizen currently on medical leave of absence from two of my three employers, and since I am still recovering from very major and very recent medical surgery for a life-threatening medical problem that I underwent in a hospital in Austin in late February 2019, I am hopeful that you will please ask the DA's Office to waive any fee to me for that reason as well.
Thank you in advance for giving consideration to this appeal from myself.
Sincerely and Best Wishes,
John Kevin McMillan.
10926 Jollyville Road, Apt. 1609, Austin, TX 78759.
Home phone: (512) 342-2295.
To quote directly from your April 10 official ruling letter:
"The district attorney's office states it may be necessary to convert e-mails to PDF to redact confidential information. Upon review, we find the tasks of gathering, compiling, preparing the e-mails for release, and redacting confidential information qualify as labor.
Accordingly, we find the district attorney's office may generally charge $15.00 per hour to complete these tasks.
"However, the district attorney's office has failed to explain why it is necessary to organize the e-mails before providing them to the requestor (John Kevin McMillan of Austin District 10). Accordingly, we find this task does not meet the definition of labor, and the district attorney's office may not charge labor for the time necessary to complete this task...."
I am very hopeful that you will agree with me that in view of these legal determinations from yourself, the Travis County District Attorney's Office should reduce the total financial amount being sought from me.
Finally, I wish to emphasize that I myself do not have any criminal-conviction record. Furthermore, the Austin Police Department has never at any time ever once arrested any person and charged that individual with having allegedly committed a felony crime that violated my own legal rights.
I might add that the Austin Police Department has consistently informed me over a multi-decade period here in Austin that APD does not have any factual evidence that any individual has ever wronged me at any time in alleged violation of the state penal code.
I maintain that it should therefore have been very easy for the DA's Office here in Austin to quickly, and without any labor costs being charged to me, reply (if true) that that DA's office does not have any documents responsive to my November 28, 2018-dated Open Records request.
If, on the contrary, the DA's Office has generated any recent e-mail communications criticizing any possible alleged failure of any member of the Austin Police Department to arrest any crime suspect and charge that individual with having allegedly perpetrated a crime victimizing me, the public release of those documents could perform a valuable public service.
Since I myself am a low-income single adult senior citizen currently on medical leave of absence from two of my three employers, and since I am still recovering from very major and very recent medical surgery for a life-threatening medical problem that I underwent in a hospital in Austin in late February 2019, I am hopeful that you will please ask the DA's Office to waive any fee to me for that reason as well.
Thank you in advance for giving consideration to this appeal from myself.
Sincerely and Best Wishes,
John Kevin McMillan.
10926 Jollyville Road, Apt. 1609, Austin, TX 78759.
Home phone: (512) 342-2295.
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