PUD hears plea for public-records help

Lawsuit has generated requests for thousands of documents

The Grant County PUD needs help handling public-records requests, its auditor told commissioners at their Monday business meeting in Soap Lake.

Auditor Kim Justice requested the commission for an extra full-time equivalent position to handle the "avalanche" of recent requests for public records.

Many of the requests have been generated from a lawsuit the PUD filed against Prosser-based utility Benton REA. The PUD accused Benton REA of racketeering when it became a service provider on the PUD's Zipp network.

Attorneys for Benton REA then filed requests for document, e-mail and phone messages belonging to several employees. The requests have amounted to thousands of pages of documents, according to some employees.

"We're swamped right now," Justice said, adding that her one employee devoted to those requests is leaving in September.

Justice added that she has spent so much time herself handling these requests that she had little time to do any actual auditing.

Commissioners did not vote on the request Monday, but at least one seemed sympathetic to Justice's appeal.

"It seems like a reasonable request," Commission President Tom Flint said.

Monday's meeting was held at the Mother Teresa McKay Youth Outreach and Wellness Center in an effort for the PUD to connect with civic leaders

throughout the county.

During the community outreach meeting, Fiber Director Larry Jones told the assembled crowd that the PUD needs to change its mission statement from "fiber to the home" to "broadband access to homes and communities."

With the increase in wireless technology, Jones said some of the more remote areas in the county could hook up to the fiber system through a wireless connection, which would cost less than stringing fiber to every home.

Jones added that fiber may never pay for itself, and the commission must decide whether the system should be subsidized.

Commissioners also approved diverting $16,597.25 to a contract with Rapidigm, Inc., which brings the total amount of that contract to $1,590,473.25.

Rapidigm was doing computer-related work for the PUD, according to PUD spokesman Gary Garnant.

Rapidigm, whose original contract expired at the end of 2003 and whose extension ended March 31, has been trying to consolidate all of its contracts, Garnant said.

Commissioner Bill Bjork put it a different way.

"This is the one that we already spent the money, so we don't have much

of a choice, do we?" Bjork said.