Ohio House Bill 315, which went into effect April 9, gives municipalities and local law enforcement agencies the option to charge for public records requests of video footage produced from police department cameras. (Photo courtesy of Axon)
Village Council authorizes charging some for police video records requests
- Published: May 2, 2025
At the most recent Village Council meeting, Monday, April 21, the group approved a resolution that allows the Village to charge for public records requests of video footage from the YS Police Department’s body-worn camera and police cruiser dash cameras.
According to the resolution, the Village will charge $75 per hour of video produced, not exceeding a total of $750 for each recorded video.
Individuals exempt from those fees include:
• The victim of a crime where a police report had been filed;
• Immediate family members of the victim, including a parent or legal guardian of a juvenile victim;
• An attorney or individual with power of attorney representing a victim;
• A person requesting the video record on behalf of any governmental agency for “any lawful governmental purpose”;
• A person requesting the video on behalf of any Ohio public or private school;
• And an individual requesting a video that “shows, communicates or discloses” any violence — fatal or otherwise — enacted on a person by a law enforcement officer.
At the previous Council meeting, the group had considered exempting Yellow Springs residents from having to pay for public records requests of police footage, but last week, decided against that exemption by majority vote.
Council member Trish Gustafson and President Kevin Stokes voted to strike the local resident exemption from the resolution; Council member Brian Housh voted against striking that provision, wishing to keep it in the legislation. Council members Carmen Brown and Gavin DeVore Leonard were not present at Monday’s meeting.
As the News reported earlier this month, much of the language and rationale behind the resolution stemmed from Ohio House Bill 315 which, among other rulings, authorized local municipalities and law enforcement agencies to charge individuals for public records requests of police video footage — requests, Gov. Mike DeWine described in a public statement, as “time-consuming and labor-intensive” that “create unfunded burdens” on law enforcement agencies.
Police Chief Paige Burge previously told the News that processing a single hour of police camera footage — including redacting sensitive information such as driver’s license or Social Security numbers, as well as protecting victims of a crime — can take “up to four hours.”
In 2023 — when YS police officers were first issued body-worn cameras — the department received 17 video requests, then 12 in 2024 and five so far in 2025. As Chief Burge said, nearly half of the public records requests for police camera footage came from individuals outside of Yellow Springs.
“In terms of the cost of everything that goes into redacting these video records, $75 per hour will never reach the cost it takes to produce them,” said Village Solicitor Amy Blankenship.
Council President Kevin Stokes added: “I’m disappointed slightly that it’s not meant to go upwards of $75 an hour. It’s not going to get close to what it actually costs us to do it.”
When Monday’s meeting began, the group of individuals at the top of the above list of persons exempted persons from paying the records request fee were “residents of the Village of Yellow Springs, if the requester is able to establish residency in the Village using a valid issued identification card or utility bill.”
Housh and Gustafson were both initially in support of keeping local residents exempted from the fees — Stokes was skeptical from the outset of the discussion — but after some discussion at the dais, opinions changed.
“[Local residents] are a part of our tax base, so if they want a record, then they should get a record,” Gustafson said.
“But do we put limits on that?” asked Stokes. “I’m not comfortable even with residents having free-for-all if they’re going to make a whole bunch of requests. That’s not what we want.”
Clerk of Council Judy Kintner told the three Council members present for the meeting that the goal of the resolution is to stymie the volume of requests from individuals, both near and far, who, in her view, don’t necessarily need the footage for productive reasons or, worse, are seeking to sensationalize and profit from the redistribution of that footage. As Kintner saw it, the list of exemptions without the inclusion of local residents was sufficient.
“If you look down that list and you don’t find yourself in any of those other exemptions, why do you need that video?” Kintner asked. “Having had the distinct not-at-all pleasure of looking through things that need to be redacted, I would say that much of what is captured on body cam should not ever be viewed except by a lawyer or immediate family. It is often devastating.”
Kintner continued: “Many people have a moral structure within themselves where they’re never going to ask to see those things. It’s not something they should be privy to. But then, there are people who were brought up on the internet — it’s all just fun and games and entertainment. The least you can do to throw a roadblock in the way of that is to charge.”
Stokes and Gustafson were swayed by that argument; Stokes’ motion to strike local residents from the list of exemptions passed 2–1.
Despite the relative disagreement regarding who should pay the records request fee of $75/hour of footage produced, the three Council members and Village staff seemed to agree that the resolution will likely be changed and amended in the near future as the fee schedule is put into action.
“If I was a betting woman, I’d bet you’ll see this policy again,” Solicitor Blankenship told Council. “Once we put it into practice, I believe there will be tweaks that need to be made.”
One of those potential “tweaks” may be in how the Village processes the records requests and how it solicits payments.
At present, the resolution reads: “Upon the receipt of a public records request, Records Clerk shall notify the requester in writing that the requester shall be responsible for the actual cost, or a portion thereof, of fulfilling the request for the video records. … If only one request is received for a video record, that requester shall be responsible for the full cost charged by the Village, up to $750 per video record. If more than one request is received for the same video record, the Village shall prepare the video record for release and then apportion the actual costs of preparing the video record for release, up to applicable limits, in equal parts between all requesters.”
In other words, and as an example, if the Yellow Springs News, Dayton Daily News and WHIO all request the same snippet of police dash cam footage within relatively the same time, the three news agencies would split the cost.
However, if one of those news agencies requests and pays for the footage well ahead of the other news agencies, then that single media outlet would pay for that footage. The other two — well after the labor of processing the footage has been completed — would receive the footage for no cost, assuming the initial news agency paid its dues to the Village.
“So, the door opens [for fees] with the first request and the door closes when the redactions have been completed,” Kintner explained. “When it’s completed and the door closes, that’s who gets charged.”
“We’re motivated by equity and fairness,” Stokes said. “If we’ve done the work, why charge the third or fourth person who’s making the request?”
As Blankenship said at the previous Council meeting when the group first considered this legislation, HB 315 is the first “significant” change to Ohio’s Sunshine Laws, which guarantees Ohio citizens free and timely access to public records. Requests for written or text-based documents or records of all elected and public bodies remain free.
To make a public records request of the Village of Yellow Springs, contact Clerk of Council by email at judy.kintner@yellowsprings.gov or call the Village at 937-767-7206.
The next Village Council meeting will be Monday, May 5, at 6 p.m. in the John Bryan Community Center.
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