The Iowa Public Information Board
In re the Matter of: Matt Loffer, Complainant And Concerning: City of Marengo, Respondent |
Case Number: 25FC:0012 Status Report
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COMES NOW, Alexander Lee, Agency Counsel for the Iowa Public Information Board (IPIB), and enters this Status Report:
On February 3, 2025, Matt Loffer filed formal complaint 25FC:0012, alleging that the City of Marengo (City) violated Iowa Code Chapter 22.
The IPIB accepted this Complaint on February 20, 2025. An Informal Resolution was adopted on September 18, 2025. This Status Report is presented to update the Board on the status of the complaint and to seek additional guidance.
Background & Status
On December 9, 2024, the complainant, Matt Loffer, submitted a Chapter 22 request seeking records related to abandoned vehicles tagged by the Marengo Police Department in 2024. Loffer was charged $78.97 for this request, and the records were released following payment.
The City provided a breakdown of this fee as follows:
$42.47 was charged for one hour of the city police chief’s time in responding to the request
$36.00 was charged for twelve responsive “call for service” records, based on the City’s then-existing fee schedule, which listed a $3.00 flat fee for each copy of a call for service record produced by the City’s police department
$0.50 was charged for the printing costs associated with a single-page copy of the Municipal Code of Ordinances which described the criteria for when a vehicle is considered an “abandoned vehicle”
The parties eventually reached an Informal Resolution to resolve this complaint, which was signed by both parties as of September 8, 2025. Pursuant to this agreement, members of the city council conducted a training with IPIB staff and adopted a revised fee policy. Only Term #4 from the Informal Resolution remains in dispute:
Following the adoption of a new policy pursuant to Term #3, the City will work with IPIB staff to recalculate the fees charged for Mr. Loffer’s December 2024 records request, considering only the costs associated with delivering electronic records. As part of this recalculation, the City will provide a brief explanation of how the Chief of Police responded to the request, for the purpose of determining whether the time spent on the request was reasonable. If the recalculated cost is less than $78.97, the City will issue a partial refund equal to the difference. In the event that the recalculated cost is equal to or greater than $78.97, this term will be considered satisfied. Fulfillment of this term will be subject to a final review by IPIB.
The City’s recalculated fee is $35.00, reflecting one hour of the Police Chief’s time, for a proposed refund of $43.97.[1] Loffer has asked IPIB to direct a full refund, on the basis that the request should not reasonably have taken more than thirty minutes and thus should have been a routine request provided at no cost other than copying costs, of which there were none.
Applicable Law
“Although fulfillment of a request for a copy of a public record may be contingent upon receipt of payment of reasonable expenses, the lawful custodian shall make every reasonable effort to provide the public record requested at no cost other than copying costs for a record which takes less than thirty minutes to produce.” Iowa Code § 22.3(1).
Issue Presented
The sole dispute remaining between the parties to this case is whether the City reasonably took an hour to fulfill Loffer’s Chapter 22 request. Under Iowa Code § 22.3(2), a fee charged by a lawful custodian may not exceed “the actual cost of providing the service,” defined to include “only those reasonable expenses directly attributable” to fulfillment of the request. For routine requests for copies taking less than thirty minutes, Iowa Code § 22.3(1) provides that “the lawful custodian shall make every reasonable effort to provide the public record requested at no cost other than copying costs.” The term “reasonable expenses” does not require the fastest possible response time. However, if it was not reasonable for the City to have taken more than thirty minutes for the disputed request, this would be a routine request, and Loffer would be entitled to a full refund.
As part of Term #4, the City provided an official explanation of how the request was handled, which was prepared by the Police Chief who responded to the request. In this explanation, the Police Chief states that a request for abandoned vehicle records would ordinarily only take “a few minutes,” but additional time was needed to comply with Loffer’s specific instructions.
Loffer’s original request was submitted through a voicemail on December 9, 2024, seeking a record of the number of abandoned vehicles which received a 24-hour notice tag from the Police Department in 2024. On December 23, the Police Chief emailed Loffer to seek clarification on the request, as he claimed he was “not able to provide the exact request of how many vehicles have had tags placed on them in 2024,” but he could “provide a number of calls for service that were labeled as an abandoned vehicle” (as, according to the City’s explanation, calls for service are always generated but the notice sticker is not always placed).
In Loffer’s December 24 response, he replied:
What I am looking for is information from 2024, on any vehicle that has been determined to be an “abandoned vehicle by the Marengo Police Department pursuant to Chapter 80 of the Marengo Code of Ordinances, (or applicable state code) including time, date, location, and registered owner of the vehicle. […] Are you suggesting that you don't keep documentation of each vehicle on which an orange abandoned vehicle sticker is placed? I'm not looking for calls for service that have been labeled as abandoned vehicles, as I am looking for accurate information of documented incidents.
The Police Chief summarized his understanding of this request as follows:
Mr. Loffer responded indicating that he did not want copies of abandoned vehicle calls for service, rather he only wanted copies of calls for service in which a vehicle received a sticker, along with other information surrounding the vehicle and their owner(s). This required a more complex examination of all records of 2024 that involved potential abandoned vehicles (e.g. Some vehicles get a sticker but can also be labeled as: traffic hazard, disabled vehicle, motorist assist etc. ). Due to the detailed and narrowly tailored request, this took much more time to produce records for that request.
However, the Chief went on to say:
A simple request of all abandoned vehicle records would take a few minutes. Due to Mr. Loffers’ narrowly tailored request, this required approximately one hour of my time to examine all the potential records and compile them. This was also required so that Mr. Loffer was not charged for records he did not want.
This suggests that the longer response resulted both from Loffer’s specific instructions for the request, which the Chief says created additional work in sorting through the initial set of potentially responsive records, and from the City’s previous fees policy, as the improper $3.00 per record flat rate was the only reason Loffer would have been “charged for records he did not want” had they not been excluded (rather than for additional time spent responding to the request).
Request for Guidance
Because the language of Term #4 of the Informal Resolution provides that its fulfillment is subject to final review by IPIB, the Board’s guidance is now requested to resolve the factual dispute over whether the City’s proposed refund is appropriate.
Two options are recommended:
If the Board determines that the City’s justification is sufficient to explain why an hour was reasonably taken to fulfill the request, it should approve the proposed $43.97 refund as sufficient to satisfy the remaining term of the Informal Resolution.
If the Board determines that the City could not have reasonably taken more than thirty minutes to fulfill the request, it should direct the City to offer a full refund of $78.97 to resolve the case pursuant to the Informal Resolution.
IPIB staff is providing this update to the Board and seeking guidance on next steps to resolve this complaint.
By the IPIB Agency Counsel,
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Alexander Lee, J.D.
CERTIFICATE OF MAILING
This document was sent on December 11, 2025, to:
Matt Loffer, Complainant
City of Marengo, Respondent
[1] The Police Chief’s hourly rate at the time the request was fulfilled was correctly stated to be $42.47. The $35.00 rate is based on the first draft of the City’s revised fee policy, which was not the version ultimately adopted by the City. Under the final version approved by IPIB staff, the fee for one hour would be $42.47, but the City has opted to maintain the lower number from its first draft, as this was the initial figure quoted to Loffer to fulfill Term #4.