By JIM BUTLER

The Pineville City Council moved this month to establish a uniform fee schedule for electronic production of public records for requesting parties.

Mayor Rich Dupree told the council the city has a schedule for records provided the old-fashioned way but none for the digital age.

Under the Public Records Act local government is allowed to adopt reasonable fees for meeting records requests. Reasonable is defined from entity to entity.

Citizens cannot be charged for viewing public records at the place of custody and cannot be charged costs related to original creation of a record.

An electronic record is provided in original format (pdf, etc.). A custodian is not required to provide it in any other electronic format.

Printed copies of such records, if requested, must be provided, again for a reasonable fee.

A second fees action was also taken by the council.

It approved amending the Code of Ordinances sections relative to various deposits and fees from time to time by resolution rather than the more-cumbersome ordinance process.

The mayor noted there have been no revisions in utility deposit or connection fees in 30 years.