Senate Bill No. 195
(By Senator White)
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[Introduced January 10, 2008; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by
adding thereto a new section, designated §29B-1-8, relating to
civil penalties for failure to comply with freedom of
information requests.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended
by adding thereto a new section, designated §29B-1-8, to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 1. PUBLIC RECORDS.
§29B-1-8. Violation of article; civil penalties.
In addition to the criminal penalties imposed on any custodian
of any public records who willfully violates the provisions of this
article, and regardless of whether a suit is filed under the
provisions of section five of this article, a custodian shall also
be fined one hundred dollars if the custodian fails to comply with a reasonable request to inspect a public record within a month of
the request being made. The fine shall increase by one hundred
dollars a month for each month the custodian fails to comply or
until a court order is made pursuant to the provisions of section
five of this article, whichever first occurs.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is
to impose civil penalties
for failure to comply with freedom of information requests
. The
penalty is in increments of $100 for each month a custodian fails
to comply or until a court orders compliance.
This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.