Director upholds Sandy City redactions, denies Staley’s request for additional files

The Government Records Office director denied Mr. Staley’s appeal challenging Sandy City’s production and redaction of records from Intermountain. The director performed an in‑camera review and found the city’s search and redactions reasonable under GRAMA.

Staley told the director he had been told Sandy City possessed 1,103 items—composed of photographs, text messages and workbook files—but he said he never received the full set or promised hard copies. He argued numerous redactions were speculative and asked the office to require Sandy City to identify the factual basis for each redaction.

Sandy City counsel said the 1,103 figure reflects a sum of released text messages, photographs and other files; the city provided redacted and unredacted versions for in‑camera review, produced obsolete WBK files in their native format, withheld two photographs that counsel characterized as child sexual abuse material, and offered to provide workbook files in hard copy as a courtesy.

After examining the files, the director confirmed the counts of text messages and photographs and found the redactions appropriate under Utah Code 63G‑2‑3022(d). The director agreed it was reasonable for Sandy City to err on the side of caution when images potentially showed minors and concluded the two withheld photographs were properly determined to be nonrecords. The appeal was denied; a written decision will follow within seven business days and parties retain the right to appeal to district court within 30 calendar days.

The director noted the city had furnished both redacted and unredacted material for review and that providing obsolete WBK files in native form does not obligate the city to reformat electronic records for the requester. The city also offered to provide hard copies of certain workbook files.