Washington Co. ordered to release unredacted Motorola emergency radio contract
This cover page of Motorola’s public safety radio proposal is one of the few parts of the 516-page contract with Washington County that was made public Wednesday following a request by the Observer-Reporter newspaper.
The state’s Office of Open Records is requiring Washington County to fully release copies of three proposals from vendors to build the county’s 911 emergency radio system, including all 516 pages of its $24.445M contract with Motorola, which had been heavily redacted.
In its final determination released Thursday morning, the office’s appeals officer sided with the Observer-Reporter in its quest for all documents related to the county’s P25 radio project to be made public, granting a sweeping decision that gives the county 30 days to release the information or file an appeal through the courts.
The Observer-Reporter filed an open records request with the county on Sept. 23 immediately after the commissioners approved the $24.445 million agreement with Motorola Solutions of Chicago, asking for that contract and two competing proposals submitted in June by North Strabane-based MRA Inc. and BK Technologies of Melbourne, Fla. The county outright denied that request on Oct. 18, prompting the newspaper to file an appeal with the Office of Open Records on the grounds that a contract and competing proposals are public documents once an agreement is approved or finalized.
Through that appeals process, the county eventually released a heavily redacted copy of the Motorola contract – with 405 pages out of the 516-page document totally redacted and another 23 pages that were partially redacted – offering few details on the agreement. The county later provided lightly redacted copies of the proposals from BK Technologies and MRA Inc.
In its filings, the county contended the redactions were required due to potential company trade secrets and other confidential information that could be unfairly released to competitors, along with possible threats to public safety if some details were made available. However, the county provided no proof about what was redacted or why, prompting appeals officer Blake Eilers to write in his decision that there was no basis for the information to be withheld.
“While the County generally states that exempt material includes design information, confidential data, proprietary testing information, detailed pricing information and equipment lists as exempt material, the fact remains that neither the companies nor the County have provided any specifics or supporting evidence,” Eilers wrote. “Accordingly, the County has failed to meet its burden of proving that the records contain trade secrets or confidential proprietary information.”
In addition, the county claimed it was working alongside the companies to make the redactions, but Eilers found that officials made contradictory statements about whether the Motorola workers alone made those decisions or if they worked in conjunction with the county. As the agency of record, the county is required to make the final decisions on what should be redacted, not a private company.
“The County states that it has informed the companies and that they have elected to participate in the appeal ‘by and through’ the County,” Eilers wrote. “Although the County originally asserted that the companies made the redactions, it later acknowledged that it had worked with the companies to redact the records.”
County officials could have submitted a signed affidavit or statement asserting the reasons for the redactions, or the companies themselves could have participated in the appeal, which they did not. Eilers wrote that “unsworn position statements” without sufficient evidence on why the documents were redacted meant all of the information should be made public.
“(Washington) County fails to identify the supposedly sensitive material, nor does it describe what purported threat might be reasonably likely to result from disclosure. Significantly, the County presents no evidence whatsoever,” Eilers wrote in his final determination. “Because it provides no evidence describing a threat that would be reasonably likely to occur from the disclosure of unspecified material, the County has failed to meet its burden of proving that the material is exempt from disclosure.”
Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, Washington County Commissioner Chairman Nick Sherman said officials would review the decision, although he had no issues with releasing the contract except for the portions that included information on radio tower locations.
“We’re always taking public safety as the most important issue,” Sherman said. “If someone wanted to be nefarious and do some sort of terrorist attack on the system, it’s important we don’t publish where the sites are.”
He did not know what the county’s next steps will be, but he expected the contract would be released as required by the OOR’s final determination on the issue.
“As far as the numbers and everything else, it should be available to the public,” Sherman said. “The only thing we would challenge is the (tower) locations.”
The county has 30 days to either comply with the decision and release all the required documentation, or it can appeal it to Washington County Court of Common Pleas by Jan. 4.