By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director
The $25,000 cost estimate “shocked” Lisa Bigelow when she received the response to her Colorado Open Records Act request earlier this month, but then her friends told her to read the email more closely.
The bill from the Pikes Peak Library District in El Paso County wasn’t $25,000. It was $25 million. More precisely, it was $25,377,971.43.
It could have been even more, but the library district subtracted $41.37 because CORA requires government entities to provide the first hour of research and retrieval at no charge.
“I misread it,” Bigelow said. “I was shocked at $25,000 but then my friends were like, that’s $25 million. It’s just crazy, crazy, obviously crazy.”
Bigelow, who used to be budget director for the city of Colorado Springs, is conducting research for the Maverick Observer, a news website (currently on “hiatus’) run by former Colorado Springs Gazette owner Tim Hoiles.
Her March 6 request sought: “All communications (including but not limited to emails, text messages and internal memoranda) between the PPLD Board of Trustees, CEO, CFO and the landlords/property managers for all leased properties by PPLD. These libraries include but are not limited to Cheyenne Mountain, Ruth Holley, Rockrimmon, Monument and Ute Pass.”
Bigelow said she realizes it was worded broadly and that she “made a very big mistake” by not setting a date parameter — perhaps six months — for the records she wanted. She also could have just asked for letters rather than text messages and other communications.
Even so, she wonders how it could possibly take the district 613,440 hours to fulfill her CORA request. “It would be interesting to see how they came up with the 600,000 hours,” she said.
Assuming a 40-hour work week and not accounting for holidays and vacations, a full-time employee works about 2,080 hours a year. By that measure, the Pikes Peak Library District estimated it would take one person 295 years to “research, retrieve, and prepare” the records Bigelow requested.
The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition asked the library district how it calculated the number of hours.
Because Bigelow did not provide a timeframe or list specific names, “our research covered all electronic conversations for all of the individuals in these roles who had discussions with landlords/property managers for all leased properties over the years. The only limiting element was the requested search term of ‘PPLD Leases,’” wrote Denise Abbott, the district’s chief communications and marketing officer in an email to CFOIC.
“The search returned 34.080 TB (terabytes) of information. With 1 TB equaling 1,000 GB, this equates to 34,080 GB. With the help of AI, PPLD determined it would take 18 hours of staff time to redact 1 GB of information. Therefore, after multiplying 18 (hours) by 34,080 (the number of GB) we came to 613,440 hours.”
The Pikes Peak Library District was sued in December over the board of trustees’ decision not to extend the lease for the Rockrimmon Library. The lawsuit accuses the board of violating the Colorado Open Meetings Law, state statutes governing libraries and the district’s own bylaws. In a February court filing, the district disputed the allegations and sought to have the lawsuit dismissed.
Bigelow has submitted a revised CORA request for “letters and internal memorandum which includes ONLY the subject of renewing the leases between the PPLD Board of Trustees, CEO, and/or CFO and the landlords/managers for Cheyenne Mountain, Ruth Holley, Rockrimmon, Monument and Ute Pass leases from June 2024 through December 2024.”
Fulfilling that request will take 12.75 hours and cost Bigelow $486.10, the library district’s records custodian told her.
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