Editor’s Note: Sunshine Request makes no claim as to the veracity of any statements or information contained in any of the requests, or public records, we receive.
Editor’s Note to Sender 04/28/2023: The submission above has been marked as “Completed.”
Since May of 2022 our Team has continued to experience long delays and issues with the fulfillment of requests sent to the City of Northwest, NC. On several occasions we haven’t received any response, and have followed up numerous times, called their office, emailed other government entities (like Connie Marlowe with Brunswick County, NC) in order to get a reply — and/or have had to mark our requests as “Denied” when we do not hear back.
Besides a general phone number, and an email address for Donna and the Mayor, there is no other contact info available on the City’s website: https://cityofnorthwest.com/ . We’ve repeatedly expressed our concerns to Donna and the Mayor regarding the City’s records fulfillment process / responsiveness. We have asked that their legal staff take immediate action to resolve this issue, and ensure they comply with NC Public Records Law.
Currently, we have two records requests “open” with the City. We are actively working to get a response. If we do not hear back in a week, we will mark the requests as having been “Denied” by the City, and we will consider next steps to contact their Council or Manager to raise our concerns about their records process. You can track the status of those requests at the following URLs:
Until we receive a response from the City regarding our requests, as well as an acknowledgment / resolution of the ongoing fulfillment issues… unfortunately, it will not be possible for our small Team to spend additional time to send any new records requests to the City of Northwest, NC. We apologize for the inconvenience.
In the meantime — if any new info you’d like to request is urgent or is needed in a timely manner, then we ask that you please consider reaching out to the City directly for assistance with any new requests.
Additionally, please note:
Sunshine Request will not fulfill the following types of requests:
☀️ Requests that are incomplete, non-specific, or vague.
While we do proofread requests we receive for general spelling and clarity, we may choose not to fulfill the request if it is incomplete, or it is unclear what specific information the requester hopes to receive. In this case, the sender may rewrite and resubmit the request.
It’s the requester’s responsibility to write the request in a manner that clearly specifies a record that is being requested, and to what government entity it should be sent.
☀️ Requests that are only informational questions, and requests that are not addressed to government entities.
Sunshine Request is a site built to make requests for public records to the government — Public records are recorded information such as documents, government emails, and data sets.
In the interest of preserving our team’s time to focus on the high volume of requests on our site, as well to respect the staff time of government entities fulfilling records requests, Sunshine Request will no longer fulfill “requests” that are just informational type questions for government entities to answer.
We also will not fulfill requests made to non-government entities.
It’s the requester’s responsibility to write the request in a manner that clearly specifies a record that is being requested, and to what government entity it should be sent.
Additional Note for Users: Sunshine Request does not control if / when Government entities will confirm receipt, begin processing, complete, or deny requests we submit to them via our website. If you would like to make a request that is time sensitive, we recommend that you reach out to the appropriate government entity directly for assistance with a request, rather than submitting through our site.
Sunshine Request is run by a very small team. Due to holidays, unforeseen events / scheduling conflicts, there may be times that we cannot publish or update requests for several days. We will do our best to process all requests as quickly as possible.
We review and send in requests to the appropriate entities as quickly as we are able, and it is up to the Government agency to determine the timeline and speed with which the request can be processed. We generally try to follow up on requests once every 1 – 2 weeks as we’re able, until the government agency has confirmed that the request has been received and is being processed (and there is some timeline for completion), and we will wait to follow up again during the time period they specify.
Please do not send us additional submissions asking that we “follow up on” a request on our site, or to ask for a status update on a request. If at any time you would like to track the status of your request, please “Search” for your request via the “Search box”, or by viewing the list of requests on the View All Requests page. Any updates we receive will be posted on our site as soon as we are able.
Thank you for using Sunshine Request!