Tuesday, June 13, 2006 | 7:36 a.m.
It seemed like a simple enough idea - the best way to let readers know about what shape downtown apartments are in would be to ride along with the guy who has to go out and inspect them every time someone complains.
The Neighborhood Services Department employees at Las Vegas City Hall had even invited the Sun to do just that in January, as we were looking into a motel that the agency shut down because it was unfit for people to live in, with no heat in winter, mold and a host of other health hazards.
The inspector, Jim Shadrick, invited me to tag along "any time."
But something had changed.
The city was considering charging apartment owners a yearly fee to help cover the cost of a new system. Instead of reacting only to complaints, more inspectors would be hired to regularly visit each of the city's estimated 55,000 apartments. And Mayor Oscar Goodman, after meeting with some apartment owners, slammed the idea.
So our request for a ride-along with the inspector was denied.
According to department spokeswoman Mary Ann Price, gaining some hands-on insight into problems facing low-rent apartments and often unscrupulous slumlords was no longer permitted because the proposed system was "under public comment."
We couldn't study the issue because it was undergoing public comment? Go figure.
So began a slippery slide through filing cabinets and answering machines of City Hall, a seemingly impossible search for information from a public agency.
Having been denied a ride-along with the inspector, I figured the next best way to understand the breadth and depth of problems facing apartments downtown - a source of much-needed affordable housing - would be to take a look at Shadrick's files. Then, I reasoned, I could visit the apartments myself, and talk to tenants, as well as the owners.
I asked for copies of Shadrick's cases dating from January.
State law allows for just such a thing, of course - the media or the public can look at the files of public agencies in order to understand their workings, which are paid for, after all, by the public.
A few days later - after checking with the city attorney - Price sent an e-mail saying there were 132 closed cases, adding up to between 175 and 225 pages. The office would need a week to make the copies. They would cost $1 a page. "Please advise," she closed.
A dollar a page?
That seemed a little high for a photocopy. Was that price set according to some policy? I asked, wondering if it had been improvised on the spot. A few days later, Price sent me a document titled "Public Records Access: Overview."
On page 8, the fee for copies is indeed set out at a buck a page - and has been since 2001.
I called around. North Las Vegas charged the same. Henderson, 60 cents.
Then I cast a wider net - Phoenix, another fast-growing Southwest city, charges 15 cents. A dollar, said spokesman David Ramirez, "is very high, quite frankly."
San Diego will set you back 25 cents a page.
Salt Lake City charges a dime - "but I haven't seen anyone charged since I've been here," said Patrick Thronson, who became the city's communications director last fall.
I was troubled, too, that I was being offered closed cases because I had sought "all paperwork related to inspections."
Closed cases are the ones where problems have been fixed. I called back, again, to ask about the open cases - the ones that are still being worked on - since those would be more telling, offering a current snapshot of problems in the stock of affordable housing.
Another few days went by. More back and forth between Price and the city attorney.
The answer: OK, fine, I could see the open cases as well, but some information would have to be redacted, so as not to compromise anyone's privacy. There were about 100 open cases.
I offered that it would be best for me to go to City Hall, look through the files myself, and decide which, if any, I wanted photocopied.
When I finally had time to do so, I called back and was greeted with the question, "How long would you need?"
Answer: "I don't know, as long as you'll give me."
"The reason I ask, if you take more than 20 minutes, we'll have to charge you."
"How much?"
"Forty-five dollars an hour."
What?
Where did that fee come from? Is it set by policy? Does the public get charged $45 an hour to come in and look at city records?
Phoenix had no such charge. Neither did San Diego. And of course, neither did Salt Lake City, which doesn't even charge for photocopying.
"We have the information available - people can take as much time as possible," Phoenix's Ramirez said.
He noted that sometimes a reporter will ask for records, come in and see five or six boxes of documents and turn on their heels and walk away.
"That drives our staff crazy," he said.
Thronson at Salt Lake City said reporters or members of the public don't usually come in but rather send requests for information, which the relevant agency then complies with.
Price and I exchanged more calls over the next few days waiting for an answer about the viewing fee. She said she still hadn't heard back from the city attorney, but thought the fee came from "my salary plus benefits."
Finally, on Thursday, she decided not to wait for a call back and announced a change of heart.
"I'm getting tired of this back and forth," she said.
And I wasn't?
"You can come in and look at the files ... if there's something you want to pick out, you can let me know."
"And you won't charge?"
"No," she said. "I'm just trying to work with you here."
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