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I 68 ORDINANCE NO. 1978-18 AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SAN MARCOS, TEXAS, ESTABLISHING PROCEDURES FOR REQUESTING INFORMATION, INSPECTING CITY RECORDS, AND COPYING CITY RECORDS; AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO COMPILE AND MAINTAIN A RECORDS RETENTION SCHEDULE; PROVIDING A SEVERABILITY CLAUSE; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE. WHEREAS, the Legislature of the State of Texas, in Article 6252- 17 a, V. A. C. S., has declared that it shall be the public policy of the STATE OF TEXAS "that all persons are, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times entitled to full and complete informa- tion regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent them as public officials and elIlcployees"; and, WHEREAS, said statute further provides that each governmental body may promulgate reasonable rules of procedure for the inspection and retention of City records; and, WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of San Marcos, Texas, desires to establish such procedures; now, therefore, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SAN MARCOS, TEXAS: I Section 1. Requests for information from City records will be handled only during the regular office hours of the City offices. If the information is in active use or inactive storage and, therefore" not available at the time a person asks to examine it, the custodian of the public records shall certify this fact in writing to the applicant and set a date and hour within a reasonable time when the record will be available for inspection. Section 2. No original records in any form may be taken from City offices without the written permission of~the custodian of the records. Section 3. Copies of City records shall be furnished upon request and I payment of a reasonable fee for the reproduction of such records. Charges for the copying of public records of the City shall be established by the City Council. Suitable copies of all public recordsl of the City shall be provided within a reasonable period of time after the date copies were requested. Section 4. Prepayment in cash of the anticipated costs for the preparation of such records, may be required as a condition precedent to preparation of such copies where the reproduction costs would be unduly costly and would cause the City undue hard~hip if the costs were not paid. I Section 5. The City Manager of the City of San Marcos is hereby authorized to compile and maintain a time schedule for records retentic Such schedule is to be prepared in accordance with State and Federal laws and local ordinances and shall specify the period of time City records which are no longer currently in use are to be retained before' being destroyed. Section 6. In the event a record has been destroyed in accordance with the City's records retention schedule, a certificate to that affect will be issued upon request. Section 7. That if any provision of this Ordinance shall be held to be void or unconstitutional, such holding shall in no way affect the validity of the remaining provisions of this Ordinance, which shall remain in full force and effect.