Recorder ordered to make addresses public
The Salt Lake County Council voted 6-3 Tuesday to make the addresses available, overturning a decision by Salt Lake County Recorder Gary Ott to restrict access to home addresses that are found on property tax records. The decision was made after an appeal under the Government Records Accessibility Management Act (GRAMA) by a business which provides property information to realtors, appraisers and developers.
While removing the restrictions on the addresses, the council denied a separate appeal about the costs of obtaining the records. Instead, they agreed that Ott had the right to set the fee — currently two cents per record — unless the council determines a more appropriate fee.
Councilman Cortlund Ashton said that while he understands people's need for privacy, a home address is part of the public records and should be accessible to everyone, including commercial entities.
"It's hard to argue against privacy, until you look at the consequences," Ashton said. "I look in GRAMA and see nowhere that addresses are protected, except for specific individuals."
"You don't want government hiding from you information that impacts your life," he said. "But it (GRAMA) is not a free pass for anyone to access information about you for commercial reasons."
Ott had restricted access to the records because of a new state law that allows at-risk public employees, such as police officers or judges, to have their address taken off their records. Because of the approximately $100,000 that he estimated it would take to meet those requests, he simply took the address off most of the easily accessible records for all county residents.
After the decision, Ott said he was "disappointed" by the decision, considering that two lower committees within the county had upheld his action. However, he hoped that the council would look at creating a policy that would adequately protect the privacy of residents and could be equitably applied for all county departments, something multiple council members wanted to discuss at a later date.
"We need a countywide policy," he said. "What we accomplished today — if nothing else — is that we started a discussion about that policy."
Bill Gaskell, president of NewReach, the company that appealed the decision, said that he was pleased the addresses would be accessible. He also hoped that future discussions will involve the public more than Ott's initial decision did because they would see the importance of keeping the addresses on the records.
"Given public input, nobody could determine that an address should be private," he said.
E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com
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