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.
02/23/24. Editor’s Note to Sender: The submission(s) above have been marked as “Completed”. As written it is unclear what specific searchable public record the sender would like to receive. Additionally, the Start date / End date (indicating the timelines for responsive records to be included in a search) are unclear.
In regard to the [REDACTED] text above: In our experience, the City of AVL does not make a request, or its results, “public” on their Next Request page until the request has been completed. Typically, they also do not publicly post any communications they exchange with the sender, and they only “publish” the final results / general status updates about a request for the public to see. Any updates about a pending request are only visible to the City and the request’s Sender (when logged into your NextRequest account).
If you submit a request to the City and you don’t see it “published” on their site, that’s likely because it hasn’t been completed yet. We recommend logging into your account to see if there has been any message or update sent by the City. If you’re expecting to have received an update by now, and would like to follow up — then it’s possible for you to send a follow up message to the City (when you’re logged into your account).
Later on, if the records you hope to receive are not already public on the City’s website (or via any completed requests on their Next Request page), please feel free to revise and submit a new request through our website. Please clearly indicate any specific details, subject, message, dates, record types, City / County / State, etc. about the exact public records that are being requested. Clarifying this info will help to greatly narrow the scope, and will also reduce the amount of time it may take the Disclosing Agency (and our Team) to process the request.
Sunshine Request will not fulfill the following types of requests:
☀️ Requests that include profanity, personal statements, opinions, possibly defamatory statements, or other unnecessary info that is not relevant to making a records request.
Please do not include personal opinions and statements in the request’s Subject or Message. Please omit any extraneous statements that are not specific to the exact information you’d like to receive. This is not relevant information pertinent to the processing of a records request, and the request will not be published.
☀️ 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, overly broad, 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.
☀️ 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.
☀️ 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.
☀️ 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.
Thank you for using Sunshine Request!