VIA EMAIL ONLY

May 14, 2026

Mr. Paul Gallagher

Ms. Kelley Morris Salvatore

Solicitor, Town of Cumberland

Dear Mr. Gallagher and Attorney Salvatore:

We have completed our investigation into the Access to Public Records Act (“APRA”) Complaint filed by Mr. Paul Gallagher (“Complainant”) against the Cumberland Police Department (“Department”). For the reasons set forth herein, we find that the issue raised by the Complaint is moot but that the Complainant is free to file a new complaint if he disagrees with the Department’s substantive response to his request, which was made after the Complaint was filed.

All emails (including attachments) sent or received by Cumberland R.I. Police Detective Zachary LeFleur that are to, from, or cc/bcc involving [Jane Doe 1][1] from September 1, 2020, through present day. Please include message body text and full headers, and any mobile to email or email to mobile messages routed through agency systems.

Furthermore, The existence only of emails sent or received by Cumberland R.I. Detective Zachary LeFleur that are to, from, or cc/bcc involving [Jane Doe 2], and [Jane Doe 3] from September 1, 2020, through present day.

The Department responded by assessing a prepayment estimate of $1,720. It instructed the Complainant to “[p]lease advise whether you are also requesting any deleted messages that cannot be accessed without assistance from our third-party IT consultant” and informed him that “[i]f you want those records to be searched and evaluated, please provide a check in the amount of $1,720 for the cost charged by our IT consultant, which is calculated at $215 per hour with an estimated 8 hours to complete the search and retrieval process.” As discussed further below, the record indicates that the Department construed the request as seeking deleted messages and accordingly gave a prepayment estimate that assumed (unless clarification was received) that the request was seeking deleted messages. The Department also cited to R.I. Gen. Law § 38-2-2(4)(D) (“Exemption (D)”) that exempts from disclosure certain law enforcement records, but it seemingly did not actually withhold any records pursuant to that exemption, and the instant Complaint does not challenge or pertain to the Department’s citation of Exemption (D).

The Complainant responded to the Department’s response stating that he “will forward to [his] client for approval.”

The Complainant then submitted the instant Complaint. He asserts that the prepayment estimate assessed by the Department is “unreasonable and excessive” and “violates Rhode Island state law.” He states that he does not “understand why the [Department] requires an outside vendor/contractor” to perform an email search and he is “not aware of any municipality that does not employ someone that can perform this relatively simple function.” He argues that if the Department “chooses to hire an outside vendor/contractor to perform this function” then the Department “should be responsible to pay the difference between the fee schedule, and the outside vendor/contractor fee” accordingly “they would be responsible for the first hour cost ($215.00) and $200.00 for each additional hour.”

The Complainant further asserts that the Department’s search for records can be performed in the first hour or, at most, the second hour. He asserts that “[t]hese fees and actions do raise concerns that the Town of Cumberland and the Cumberland Police may be attempting to discourage public records requests of this nature, particularly since they list no disclaimer on fees.”

The Department submitted a substantive response to the instant Complaint through its legal counsel Kelley Morris Salvatore, Esq., along with a sworn affidavit from Deputy Police Chief Matthew Alves. The Department states that “Deputy Chief Alves read ‘all’ as meaning and including any emails that may have been deleted from the Police Department’s server.” It explains that “[a]s he does not have the technical expertise to search and retrieve ‘all’ emails from the server, he contacted the Town’s third-party IT vendor to assist.” The third-party vendor informed Deputy Chief Alves that the search and retrieval would take 6-8 hours at a cost of $215 per hour. Deputy Alves informed the Complainant of this cost, to which he responded that he would “forward to [his] client for approval.” However, there was no further communication from the Complainant until the instant Complaint was submitted to this Office.

The Department asserts that it is permitted under the APRA to “charge for retrieving records where the public body is assessed a retrieval fee.” (Citing R.I. Gen. Law § 38-2-4(a); D.A.R.E. v. Gannon, 819 A.2d 651, 661 (R.I. 2003)). It states that “[a]lthough a simple search for what is currently on the server could be handled internally by police staff, ‘all’ emails, including any deleted emails, could not be retrieved without the assistance of the Town’s IT vendor at a substantial cost to the Police Department.”

The Department further asserts that “[a]lthough the Complaint is limited to the charge for search and retrieval, after receipt of the subject Complaint, the Police Department searched and retrieved email records that are currently on the Police Department’s server (without assistance from the third-party IT vendor)” and determined that the “emails are not public records, as they meet one or more of the exceptions in the APRA.”

Finally, the Department asserts that “with respect to [the Complainant’s] request of ‘the existence only’ of certain records, it is not clear what type of response [the Complainant] expects to receive, in that the APRA is a statute requiring the production of public records.” It further asserts that the implicated records “are exempted from release under one or more exemptions, and the privacy interest is heightened because the subjects of the emails are juveniles.”

We acknowledge the Complainant’s rebuttal. In the Complainant’s rebuttal he states: “I respectfully decline to discuss the denial of my public records request as I am well-versed in the appeals process.” As the Complainant declines to challenge the Department’s substantive reason for why the responsive email records are non-public under Exemption (D) and indicates that he may file an administrative appeal regarding the same, and as that issue was not raised in the Complaint as it pertains to developments that occurred after the Complaint was filed, our finding is limited only to the question of the propriety of the Department’s prepayment estimate.

Ultimately, the “onus is on the requester to articulate precisely what records they are seeking.” Farinelli v. City of Pawtucket, PR 25-09; see Assassination Archives and Research v. Central Intelligence Agency, 720 F. Supp. 217, 219 (D.D.C. 1989) (“it is the requester's responsibility to frame requests with sufficient particularity to ensure that searches are not unreasonably burdensome, and to enable the searching agency to determine precisely what records are being requested”).[2] If the requester only sought responsive emails that were on the Department’s server and could be searched without the need for a third-party IT vendor’s services then the onus was on the requester to respond as such to the Department’s inquiry. Instead, the Complainant filed the instant Complaint with this Office. Although the Complainant failed to provide clarification, the Department’s prepayment response was also problematic. The response left it ambiguous as to whether the Department’s time for searching and retrieving non-deleted messages was embedded within the prepayment estimate it provided, or whether the Department was assessing prepayment based on a vendor rate of $215 per hour, for searching and retrieving both deleted and non-deleted messages. It may be true that the vendor’s search for deleted messages would necessarily encompass a search for all responsive messages and that the Department was not impermissibly passing along vendor rates for additional time spent on searches that were within the Department’s own capability of performing. Or it may be the case that the Department’s estimate was based on impermissibly having the vendor spend extra time performing searches that were within the Department’s capability.  

Ultimately, we find it unnecessary to seek additional factual clarification and resolve this question because the record reflects the issue has become moot. Subsequent to the filing of this Complaint, the Department indicated it completed a search for all non-deleted messages and that it determined such records are exempt and non-public under the APRA. The Complainant in turn indicated that he had in fact received a “denial” of his request and he intended to potentially file an administrative appeal with the Department about that determination. As such, the record reflects that the Department has now substantively responded to the Complainant’s request (at least as to non-deleted messages) without assessing prepayment.[3] And the Complainant has not indicated that he intended for his request to include deleted messages. This indicates that the Complainant has now received a complete substantive response to his request without providing prepayment. In these circumstances, it would not be conducive for this Office to seek supplementation of the record or further investigate the factual circumstances underlying the Department’s prepayment estimate as subsequent developments mooted the matter.  See Cushman v. Warwick City Council, OM 26-09 (declining to further investigate the factual underpinnings of a complaint where no relief would be appropriate).

To be sure, the Complainant seemingly takes issue with the Department’s substantive denial decision, but that matter is not currently before us. If the Complainant disagrees with the Department’s denial decision, the Complainant is free to file a Complaint with this Office regarding that issue, and this Office would substantively review the matter. Additionally, if the Complainant is in fact seeking deleted messages (which does not appear to be the case) the Complainant is free to submit a new APRA request to the Department specifically and clearly seeking such records, and the Department in turn, if it assesses prepayment, should be careful to only assess prepayment for vendor time to the extent the search and retrieval cannot be completed by the Department without the assistance of a vendor.

This Office has stressed time and time again that communication between the parties is key, as communication between a requester and a public body can often promote understanding, clarify ambiguities, and resolve disputes. We question whether this issue could have been resolved without the need for a complaint if the parties had communicated further.

·         The existence of other emails

The second part of the Complainant’s request asked the Department to confirm “[t]he existence only of emails sent or received by Cumberland R.I. Detective Zachary LeFleur” involving certain individuals. The nature of this request is not entirely clear, see Farinelli v. City of Pawtucket, PR 25-09, but this part of the Complainant’s request seemingly does not seek specific records, but instead poses a question to the Department. The Department had no obligation to respond to the second part of the Complainant’s request as it was not a valid APRA request. This Office has previously stated that the APRA governs the public’s right to access public documents but does not mandate or require that public bodies answer questions. See Lyssikatos v. City of Pawtucket, PR 20-29 (“the APRA requires public bodies to provide access to documents and does not mandate that a public body respond to questions or interrogatories”).