I had an email (which I accidentally deleted, really) from some outfit which requested under the Public Information Act (PIA) concerning animal euthanasia. It wanted me to tell them the different jurisdictions in the county that put down animals and then had some questions about that. I found myself in the PIA manual that TAC publishes and the TDCAA sent me. I plan to state that the the request was made to the wrong officer. I do not keep those records. PIA are made direct to the custodian of the record, not to someone that can get hold of the information.

Has anyone else received this same PIA request?
If so post that you have. I need to respond.
John Hutchison
Hansford County CA

I got it also. The guy who sent it is active in some of the animal rights movements in the state.

Nolan COunty doesn't have / control an animal control facility, and this office does not maintain a list of municipal shelters - that was my response...

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

My response was:


Robert,
You have made your request to the wrong officer. I have no" information regarding the euthanasia of dogs and cats in the custody of each municipal or county animal shelter in your county�s jurisdiction ". Your request much be made directly to the appropriate record keeper. In Hansford County that would be the City of Spearman and the City of Gruver.
I have attached a PDF from a booklet "About the Public Information Act" published by the Texas Association of Counties, 2010 Update, for your further reference.

End of Quote
John Hutchison, CA, Hansford Co.

Mine was even shorter...we don't have a county shelter, and I don't know about the city ones; please contact the cities of Sweetwater, Roscoe, Blackwell and Maryneal.

Are we the only 2 to get this? From the heading "Dear County Attorney" I would have thought it a blanket e-mail.

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

We ignore PIA requests we don't like.

Actually, I think we got one, and I believe our answer was substantially similar to Lisa's. Of course, out here on the prairie, it probably would have been more accurate to also list "5-6,000 old boys with .22s, .30/30s and/or shotguns of various gauges."

I got the same e-mail. It was an easy answer, as Jeff Davis County does not operate a shelter.

Had we had a shelter, however, I think I would have declined to answer most of the questions (which sounded a great deal like a deposition).

The PIA allows the requestor to access public information, but it does not require us to create that information nor are we required to compile existing information into the requestor's format.

If the requestor wanted a copy of a report, a budget, a memo, a policy, or any other document in existence, we would be happy to provide it, but we would not do his compilation for him.