FARMINGTON – The company seeking a complete copy of Franklin County’s registry of deeds requested that an ongoing lawsuit be put on hold, as the state Legislature looks to take up the issue.
The lawsuit is an attempt by Franklin and Sagadahoc counties to avoid providing electronic copies of their registries to MacImage of Maine. The privately-owned company requested a copy of the roughly 600,000 images maintained by Franklin County through the Freedom of Access Act. The request, made in October 2009, accompanied similar requests made to the other counties.The requests followed a ruling issued by Judge Thomas Warren in Cumberland County Superior Court in a court case brought against Hancock County by MacImage.
Warren ruled that electronic copies of the registry must be made available to the company. Warren found that Hancock County’s argument that a copy cost of $1.50 per page did not fall under a FOAA provision that allows a governmental entity to “charge a reasonable fee to cover the cost of copying.” The company’s general manager, John Simpson of Cumberland Foreside, has said that he intends to post the information on a Web site, charging 75 cents for copies.
The potential reduction in revenue is a serious one; the county uses the $40,000 in annual revenues from deed copies to defray the cost of staffing and operating the registry.
Franklin County, along with Sagadahoc County, have brought a lawsuit against MacImage, arguing that the company’s request goes beyond a simple request for public information. The counties’ attorney for this matter, Frank Underkuffler, has argued that MacImage’s request would require altering its database and would require alterations on the part of BROWNtech, the county’s electronic data management company.
Furthermore, the counties have argued that deeds involving two residents of the county does not constitute “government action” and therefore does not fall under the FOAA.
MacImage requested an extension to consider its response to the arguments, according to Underkuffler, and then asked the court to grant an order staying the lawsuit pending the end of the legislative session.
“The battle is temporarily moving from the courthouse to the Legislature,” Underkuffler said.
Underkuffler is scheduled to testify before the State and Local Committee today. That subcommittee is currently considering LD 1554, “An Act Regarding Document Fees at County Registries of Deeds,” which is sponsored by Rep. Patsy Crockett (D – Augusta).
That bill would clarify what constitutes a “reasonable fee” for selling a deed copy, allowing the counties to incorporate previous expenditures, such as the cost of setting up an electronic database, into that fee. Franklin County claims that as much as $2.5 million has been spent operating the registry of deeds. The bill also requires people who obtain records from registries and then sell those records to indicate on the deeds that they are not official copies.
Underkuffler said that other counties in Maine had indicated they would possibly be interested in joining Franklin County and Sagadahoc County’s lawsuit, should the legislative session not resolve the issue.
Interesting problem. Privitization of the Registry versus cheaper and easier public access to information (maybe).
Sounds similar to the turnpike privitization issues out in Indiana and Illinois. If the countties were able to come up with the money to set up their own web-based image library, there would be little incentive for the suit.
We could also privatize protection services – I understand Xe has employees unable to work in Iraq right now. That might also eliminate the need or courts and jails since Xe employees might take care of the problem on the spot.
Privatize schools too. Of course, the tuition costs would be high enough so most families couldn’t afford to educate their children, but this would provide the big box economy with lots of low priced help permitting the overlords even greater profits.
The list could go on to cover most government services resulting in interesting scenarios like private fire companies brawling in the street to see who gets to put out the fire. That happened in the 19th Century, but that’s looking backward which Uncle Dick says we mustn’t do.
There are things government does better than the private sector despite conservative protestation to the contrary.
If the pupose of the registry is to store and provide this information, I can understand the concern about the privitization of electronic deed access undercutting the registry’s ability to function. Deeds would still be required to be recorded at the registry, not the private company. So if the registry were unable to make fiscal ends meet on one end, recording fees would increase on the other. This would effectively have money travel from Farmington (in increased recording fees) to Cumberland Foreside (in electronic copy profit), always a hot button argument. But again, if they were required to make electronic copies by the court, couldn’t they put them on the web themselves and charge for them? Unlike the examples above of privatized cops and firefighters who must (I hope) be sanctioned by the state to provide an exclusive service, electronic deed access would be available to anyone requesting the information and willing to pay a reasonable fee. I agree that there are government services that should not be privatized, and some private services that should be nationalized, but at the least this suit will serve as an audit of the registry to explain why it costs $1.50 for a copy.