I've got a little project in Murray, Kentucky. Murray is a small town, but larger than most of the county seats around here. It is also the home of Murray State University, a school in the Ohio Valley Conference. The county has a website. I went there to find the subdivision regulations. They're there, but the link is broken. I called the office to see if they could e-mail them. They told me to call the county clerk. I did. I was told that "we don't e-mail" and I would have to come by and pick them up. There is no excuse in 2016 for any government official to be unwilling to transmit by e-mail any document necessary for public business.
is that clerk actually unwilling or incompetent?
I think probably the latter
Peter Ehlert, post: 364094, member: 60 wrote: is that clerk actually unwilling or incompetent?
I think probably the latter
I have no idea.
I'm not sure why this county is so backwards. There are no deeds online, even though they are in digital format, and there is no online GIS. People talk about Tennessee being backwards, but I can sit at my desk here and pull almost any deed recorded in the last 40 years from anywhere in the state.
Where is this place? I want to move there!
It's about the money, job protection, and the "I am in charge, You do it my way, You do it when it is convenient for me." mentality.
James
I can never figure out why local towns will make their bylaws, regs, etc. (which were clearly created in Microsoft Word) available in PDF format, but it's been done by printing the Word document on paper, then scanning the paper copy to PDF.
Tommy,
Send them a Simple Request via email. That way they can attach a copy of the document to an email REPLY.
"Easier to REPLY than send a NEW..."
DDSM:beer:
Tommy Young, post: 364095, member: 703 wrote: I have no idea.
I'm not sure why this county is so backwards. There are no deeds online, even though they are in digital format, and there is no online GIS. People talk about Tennessee being backwards, but I can sit at my desk here and pull almost any deed recorded in the last 40 years from anywhere in the state.
In Utah we have counties with about everything online and some with nothing online. My county recorder's office has nothing online. They will email you stuff if you know what you want for a fee if its in digital format. I can do research in counties more than a hundred miles away from my office. Yesterday I had to drive 30 miles one way to get about 30 copies of deeds I needed. Pretty much used up my day. If I miss something I need or need something more after review, I can make another trip.
The Clerk does not want you to beat her out of her $0.50 per copy. How do you expect them to pay for their coffee?
Well I think that if you don't have email then it's a good excuse that you can't email 🙂
Did they offer to FAX them?
foggyidea, post: 364174, member: 155 wrote: Well I think that if you don't have email then it's a good excuse that you can't email 🙂
They didn't say anything about not having e-mail. They said "we don't e-mail".
I had to teach the Deputy Clerk that burns CDs of digital information how to put info onto a thumb drive.
I pay a fee and get their digital deeds updated every 6mos.
That began in 2005 and average 7,500 documents of public records per year.
Everything before that is hard copy that I go there and get with CamScanner.
They have a well indexed, preserved and restored library containing a color copy of every original survey for all the Headright Surveys in the county.
The ladies will email you a copy of a deed for $3 a page that would cost $1 a page if you drive there to pick it up.
They have nothing online.
A Harris, post: 364186, member: 81 wrote: with CamScanner.
Several counties in Iowa, and I don't know if it is the whole state, prohibit cameras in the records offices. There may be some excuse about needing to check the records for SSNs before giving them out, but I suspect it is primarily revenue enhancement.
It's all about the money. Copy fees seem minor until you add them up for everyone over a full year's time.
Bill93, post: 364201, member: 87 wrote: Several counties in Iowa, and I don't know if it is the whole state, prohibit cameras in the records offices. There may be some excuse about needing to check the records for SSNs before giving them out, but I suspect it is primarily revenue enhancement.
I am in the belief that they would loose that attitude after a lawsuit and it being heard by a non partial judge.
Many Clerk's offices tried to prohibit making information available to the public by use of modern technology and have failed thru the courts.
They can prohibit unbinding the books to take shots of flat pages on a table and removing any books or records from the room or building.
The public records room is a public funded facility and open access is a right.
They can rule over their private offices however they wish.
Public records have the SS#s redacted during the recording process.
Holy Cow, post: 364209, member: 50 wrote: It's all about the money. Copy fees seem minor until you add them up for everyone over a full year's time.
From my experience, I think this is the crux of the issue.
Hard copies cost money to produce. There is the cost of the labor to make the copy, the paper, the resources (ink/toner, electricity, having a copier, etc). All of this is a "justifiable cost" that can be passed on to the public to obtain copies of these documents. And though the $1 or less per page cost for deeds, and the ~$4 per sheet for maps, is a small fee, over the course of a year, it adds up to a revenue stream. This revenue stream offsets the operating costs of the clerk/recorder.
When a system moves to be available online, for free, something that generated money previously now becomes a cost that the county must pay themselves. A website has server/connection fees, maintenance costs, and so on. So what was once making money, now costs money. My home county has one of the most robust map retrieval systems I've ever used. It is paid for by the County Public Works Department. But to obtain deeds in the very same county, I rely upon a third party subscription service. And even then, it isn't a comprehensive service because any deeds older than about 1980 aren't available and I still have to go to the County Recorder's Office and search for them.
Perhaps at some point in the near future, the costs to maintain an online and free service for document and map retrieval will drop significantly such that counties can easily switch to them. Until then, I guess I get what I get.
This particular county only charges 25 cents per copy, so I'm not sure the money is the reason here.
Has anyone seen Zootopia? I took the kids and I was crying over the DMV scene.
It was not until later that I discovered that the preview had most of the scene in it. No wonder why I was the only one in the theater in tears...
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.........
