The City of St. Paul must pay damages for failing to comply with state open records law, according to a new order from a Ramsey County judge.

This all goes back to the city’s plans to build a new bike path on Summit Avenue. A group of homeowners organized as “Save Our Street” requested records from the city to better understand the project’s impact. After little response from city officials for months, Save Our Street member and retired attorney Bob Cattanach sued.

Requesting these types of records is a right of all U.S. citizens. Think police reports, financial records or even email communications between government workers.

That information is public by law, but it’s organized and kept by government officials. So in order to access it, you often have to request it.

That’s what Cattanach did, first requesting records from the City of St. Paul about its bike trail plans two years ago, on July 22, 2022, he said.

By spring 2023, he was still waiting for answers to his questions. Meanwhile, the city was able to move forward with approving the bike trail plan, so Cattanach decided to sue.

“It’s like, why do we have to go to court just to get basic documents?” he said on Tuesday. “I spent hundreds of hours trying to get very simple information.”

University of Minnesota media ethics and law professor Jane Kirtley, who is an expert in the field, called the judge’s order pretty rare.

“There’s a need for speed here. You need records so that you can respond appropriately to government actions,” she said. “So what we’ve got today is a judge that is saying, ‘Denial through any means is not acceptable, whether it’s an outright denial or whether you’re simply taking your time coming up with excuses about why you can’t process the request.'”

The court order cited 14 violations that the city must pay thousands of dollars in damages for.

“What I hope is that a ruling like this will send a message to government records custodians that being responsive to public requests is as much a part of their job as whatever else they are paid to do,” Kirtley said.

“St. Paul is just ignoring its citizens when they ask for information,” Cattanach said. “So finally, somebody said, ‘enough.'”

A jury is expected to decide exactly how much this will cost the city, which could be as much as six figures, according to the order.

In a statement responding to a request for comment, the city attorney said St. Paul “takes issue” with the court’s decision and maintained that all efforts were made to comply with the law.

“The City is currently reviewing its next steps. The City takes issue with the court’s determination that it committed willful violations of the data practices act. The City maintains that all efforts have been made to comply with the data practices act and provide plaintiff with the data requested in a timely manner.”

Lyndsey Olson, St. Paul city attorney