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 02/06/24: We apologize for the delay in processing and publishing this request on our site.
Sunshine Request is a project built and run by a small team at PRC Applications. We run the site in addition to our primary business. While we will always do our best to process and follow up on requests as quickly as possible, there are often delays depending on our availability in a given week or month.
** The submission above has been marked as “Completed”. As written, it is unclear what specific, searchable public records the sender would like to receive, or to what specific Government agency the request should be addressed. As a whole, we find the request to be unclear and overly broad.
This is not a comprehensive list of all possible revisions, but we’ve clarified just a few points that should be revised:
1. This seems to be multiple requests, as well as general information type questions, for many different entities (Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, Rutherford County Government, Rutherford County Schools and Rutherford County School Board, Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy, Lake Lure Classical Academy) to address.
If you’d like to make the same, similar, or different requests to multiple entities, please submit separate requests to our website for each request that is being made to a specific entity. Please clearly indicate any specific details, subject matter, message, dates, record types, City / County / State, etc. about the exact public records that are being requested, and to what entity the request is being made.
Clarifying this info will help to greatly narrow the scope of the request(s), and will also reduce the amount of time it takes the Disclosing Agency (as well as our team) to process the request.
2. When requesting communication records, it’s important to specify the type of communications being requested, who the communications are “sent to”, “sent from”, or “sent between”, and any specific people / staff / departments etc. that should be included. Also, when a request covers a large time period and multiple entities / employees, it’s important to include any specific subject matter or specific keywords that should be included in the search.
We don’t know how many records a request like this would potentially include — but since the various communications you’re seeking cover a 1+ year period, and they aren’t all subject matter or keyword specific, as it’s written we find the request to be overly broad.
– Additionally, please note that we will not fulfill requests for “public safety” type records specific to a single individual, address, incident, or case number. This also applies to requests that may include confidential, sensitive, or personally identifying info about students and their data / families / case #s etc. (if that type of info happens to be contained in any of the responsive records). Please keep this in mind when rewriting the request.
3. The sender indicated the “Start / End date” for some of responsive records should be December 05, 2022 – January 15, 2024 unless otherwise specified. However, several parts of the request’s Message indicate varying entities, record types, periods of time, or no time period at all. Just to list only a few examples:
– “A copy of all budget transactions in the current Rutherford County Schools budget regarding school resource officers.”
– “A copy of all budget transactions with the Rutherford County Sheriff Office regarding school resource officers from 01/01/22 to 01/15/24”.It is unclear what “budget transactions” refers to — are you looking for salaries that have been paid to all SRO’s during a specific time period? A copy of the current budget for SRO’s for the Sherrif’s Office, or for Rutherford County Schools? etc. And, to what entity would a request like this be addressed?
– What specific time period would “a copy of the notice that the state funding for SRO officers has been reduced starting in October 2024″ cover? And, to what entity would a request like this be addressed?
– Similarly. “A list of all budget line items in the RCS budget that received previously allocated funds for SRO officers for the current budget year.” What specific time period should this cover?
Sunshine Request will not fulfill the following types of requests:
☀️ 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 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 for public safety information specific to a single individual, address, incident or name.
This includes police reports, calls for service, complaints / incident reports / citations, criminal / arrest type records, or camera footage. We will, on a case by case basis, fulfill public safety related requests that focus on system-level trends and data.
Due to the personal nature of this type of information, we recommend that the sender reach out directly to the appropriate entity for assistance with the request.
☀️ 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!