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 05/08/24: The submission above has been marked as “Completed”. As written, it is unclear what specific, searchable public record the sender would like to receive, and to what specific entity the request should be sent.
1) By mentioning multiple entities within one request, it seems like the sender may be asking to submit separate requests to different entities. Can you please clarify whether this is a single request to be addressed to “Swain County, NC Government” , or to “Community Services of Swain, INC” ?
If you’d like to request similar records from different entities, we ask that the sender please submit individual requests to our website — each one should clearly indicate the specific entity / state / county, time periods, etc. and what is specifically being requested of that particular entity.
2) It is clear you’d like a copy of the current by-laws for “Community Services of Swain, INC”, and copies of [their Board meeting ?] minutes from 01/01/2017 – 04/18/2024 if they’re not already online. However, the wording “Projects/financial transactions from this LLC from 2017 till now” … “business transactions” … “donations/grants that the LLC provided during this time” (01/01/2017 – 04/18/24), is overly broad and also unclear. Are you asking to know all money this LLC “paid to” or “received from” anyone for anything, during the time period specified? And, this should also include all receipts, invoices, etc?
Clarifying the specific records you’re seeking will help to greatly narrow the scope of the request, and will also reduce the amount of time it takes the Disclosing Agency (as well as our team) to process the request.
3) An internet search for “Community Services of Swain, INC“ did not help us locate an email address / website / or appropriate contact info that may exist to submit a records request like this. However, we did see that they may be a non-profit located in Bryson City, NC. It also seems that Kevin King may have been their President as of 02/24/24: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/201675170
An internet search for “Kevin King Swain County” shows that Mr. King may have recently been County Manager for Swain County, NC and left that job in April 2024 to begin a new position as Jackson County Manager.
It would be helpful if you could please revise any new requests to include specific contact info / website links to help point us to the exact entity / person that you’d like the request to be submitted to.
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, overly broad, 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.
☀️ Please be specific:
It is important that what you are requesting is specific and reasonable, and is an actionable records request. Please specify the exact type of records you’d like to receive, rather than any “possible” or “potential” info that could be searched. Remember that the larger your request, the more time it usually takes to fulfill. Specificity will often help reduce the amount of time needed to process the request.
It is important that a request has a clearly written and complete Subject and Message, and also specifies the Government Entity (or entities), City and/or County, and State to which the request should be sent. If applicable, please also include any responsive timelines for the info that should be requested.
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 info the requester hopes to receive, or if it violates our policies.
Before submitting a request, please take a moment to review our tips for How to write and make a successful request. If you have additional questions about our site or how to make requests, please check out our FAQs or Policies page.
☀️ Code of Conduct: Please do not use Sunshine Request or any of the results of public records requests to harass government entities / employees, businesses, private citizens / individuals, or otherwise.
☀️ Please note that we cannot pay any fees / associated costs related to any of the requests on our site. If it is not possible for a Government Agency to process our request without incurring fees, then it is the responsibility of that Agency to let us know what the potential costs may be — at which point we will ask that they cease processing the request. We will mark the request as “Completed” on our site, and the sender can contact the Government Agency directly, should they wish to further pursue a request.
Thank you for using Sunshine Request!