Editor’s Note: Sunshine Request makes no claim as to the veracity of any statements or information contained in any of the requests, or public records, we receive.
Editor’s Note 08/02/23: The submission above has been marked as “Completed”. As written, it’s unclear what specific public record the sender would like to receive, or to what specific Government Agency / State the request should be sent.
“Sunshine laws”, “sunshine requests”, and “sunshine records,” are various terms generally used to refer to a public records request or a public records law in some of the United States. Ballotpedia.org defines “State sunshine laws” as: “… the laws in each state that govern public access to governmental records. These laws are sometimes known as open records laws or public records laws, and are also collectively referred to as FOIA laws, after the federal Freedom of Information Act.”
REF: https://ballotpedia.org/State_sunshine_laws
Our website, Sunshine Request (www.sunshinerequest.com), is an anonymous platform built and run by our small team in North Carolina. The name of our site was inspired by a quote from Louis Brandeis — and we built this project for anonymously submitting public records requests. Sunshine Request is not a government agency.
We do not require any personal info to be submitted in order for our team to be able to process the requests. This means we are not able to verify who submits a request, and we also do not send the results of requests directly to individuals. We publish the results of all completed requests on our website. There are certain types of requests we will not process, and certain records that we will not publish on www.sunshinerequest.com. We reserve the right to reject or remove requests, based on our own policies and judgement.
If you have questions about our website, please check out our FAQs. Please do not use the public records request form on our website, or other methods of communication, to contact us about questions related to Sunshine Request. We will not review or respond to these submissions.
It is unclear what “public policy” the sender is hoping to receive in this particular case. As far as our Team’s website policies / FAQs are concerned, you can find those at any of the links listed below. Also, due to the personal nature or urgency of the information written in the sender’s Message, we would recommend the sender reaches out directly to the appropriate Government entity for assistance with their request.
Sunshine Request will not fulfill the following types of requests:
☀️ Requests listing the possible “sender’s” name or other contact information in the request subject or message.
We do not require any personal info to be submitted in order for our team to be able to process the requests. This means we are not able to verify who submits a request, and we also do not send the results of requests directly to individuals. We publish the results of all completed requests on our website.
☀️ Requests that are incomplete, non-specific, or vague.
While we do proofread requests we receive for general spelling and clarity, we may choose not to fulfill the request if it is incomplete, or it is unclear what specific information the requester hopes to receive. In this case, the sender may rewrite and resubmit the request.
It’s the requester’s responsibility to write the request in a manner that clearly specifies a record that is being requested, and to what government entity it should be sent.
☀️ Requests that are only informational questions, and requests that are not addressed to government entities.
Sunshine Request is a site built to make requests for public records to the government — Public records are recorded information such as documents, government emails, and data sets.
In the interest of preserving our team’s time to focus on the high volume of requests on our site, as well to respect the staff time of government entities fulfilling records requests, Sunshine Request will no longer fulfill “requests” that are just informational type questions for government entities to answer.
We also will not fulfill requests made to non-government entities.
It’s the requester’s responsibility to write the request in a manner that clearly specifies a record that is being requested, and to what government entity it should be sent.
☀️ Requests related to the functioning of Sunshine Request, or requests about individual members of the Sunshine Request team.
- Due to our limited resources, as well as the volume of requests we regularly process on our site, we do not fulfill requests about Sunshine Request or members of our team. Please feel free to review our FAQs.
☀️ Please be specific:It is important that what you are requesting is specific and reasonable, and is an actionable records request. Please specify the exact type of records you’d like to receive, rather than any “possible” or “potential” info that could be searched. Remember that the larger your request, the more time it usually takes to fulfill. Specificity will often help reduce the amount of time needed to process the request.
It is important that a request has a clearly written and complete Subject and Message, and also specifies the Government Entity (or entities), City and/or County, and State to which the request should be sent. If applicable, please also include any responsive timelines for the info that should be requested.
While we do proofread requests we receive for general spelling and clarity, we may choose not to fulfill the request if it is incomplete, or it is unclear what specific info the requester hopes to receive, or if it violates our policies.
Before submitting a request, please take a moment to review our tips for How to write and make a successful request. If you have additional questions about our site or how to make requests, please check out our FAQs or Policies page.
☀️ Please note that we cannot pay any fees / associated costs related to any of the requests on our site. If it is not possible for a Government Agency to process our request without incurring fees, then it is the responsibility of that Agency to let us know what the potential costs may be — at which point we will ask that they cease processing the request. We will mark the request as “Completed” on our site, and the sender can contact the Government Agency directly, should they wish to further pursue a request.
☀️ Code of Conduct: Please do not use Sunshine Request or any of the results of public records requests to harass government entities / employees, businesses, private citizens / individuals, or otherwise.
Thank you for using Sunshine Request!