Public Records Requests

Timelines run in business days, which is any weekday that isn’t a legal holiday and on which staff who handle records requests are at work. A request received outside business hours (8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Pacific) or on a non-business day is treated as received the next business day.

• Acknowledgment within 5 business days. We confirm receipt and tell you whether Prosper Portland is the custodian of the records — yes, no, or that we’re not yet certain.
• Substantive Response within 15 business days. As soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay, we’ll do one or more of: ask for clarification; state we don’t have the records; disclose them; point to where they’re already public; deny with cited exemptions; produce non-exempt portions; or send a fee estimate. Complex, voluminous, off-site, or legally sensitive requests may take longer; we’ll give a written explanation and an estimated completion date. The clock pauses while we wait for a fee deposit or for clarification you’ve been asked to provide.
• No response. If you don’t respond within 60 days to a clarification request or to pay a required deposit, we’ll close the request as withdrawn.

Broad or voluminous requests won’t be refused for their size. We may ask to work with you to break a request into parts, produce records in rolling sets, provide a sample, or invite you to narrow by date, topic, custodian, or search terms. You’re never required to narrow. We remain obligated to respond either way.

Some information is exempt from disclosure under Oregon law (for example, ORS 192.345 and 192.355) and other statutes and privileges — attorney-client privilege, attorney work product, personal privacy, security-sensitive information, trade secrets, Social Security numbers, and records exempt under federal law.

When we withhold or redact, we’ll cite the legal basis for each redaction, produce all reasonably segregable non-exempt material, and tell you in writing how to seek review of our determination.

Competitive solicitation responses are released consistent with procurement rules and schedules, typically after a notice of intent to award and the close of any protest period.

For copies of electronic records, we’ll provide the record in the format you request if it’s available; otherwise, in the format we keep it in. We’re not required to create new records or customize reports, though we may agree to if it’s feasible, at cost.

For some records, it may be more efficient to inspect records by appointment during regular business hours at our office, with staff present. Inspection may be supervised to protect the records, and we may pause it to review and redact exempt information. Original records are never physically released to another party.

Oregon law lets us recover the actual cost of making records available, including: staff time to locate, review, redact, and produce records; attorney time to review and segregate exempt material; copies, media, postage, and vendor services. Staff time is calculated from current wage and benefit costs.

If a request is unlikely to cost more than $100, there will be no charge. If it will cost more than $100, we’ll send a written estimate and wait for you to confirm you want to proceed. Work is put on hold (time is tolled) until the deposit is received.

• 100% deposit on estimates of $1,000 or less.
• 50% deposit on estimates over $1,000.

Once work reaches the deposited amount, we’ll send the records gathered so far along with a new estimate to finish. Records produced this way come as gathered and aren’t a complete response until the request is done. This repeats until the request is complete.

Fees may be waived or reduced when disclosure primarily benefits the general public (ORS 192.324(5)). You will be asked to explain the public interest in your request. We’ll waive fees when a request needs only a nominal amount of staff time (less than about an hour). Fee-waiver denials come in writing, with brief reasons and appeal instructions.

Reproduction of photographs and oversize documents is charged at actual third-party cost.

On request, we provide reasonable accommodations and alternative formats consistent with accessibility requirements, and reasonable language assistance for requesters with limited English proficiency (Title II of the ADA and Title VI).