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a) How do you get Boston City Clerk to open/release the Plain Text Stenograph Record of Public Meetings of Boston City Council for hard of hearing, deaf, ESL English as a Second Language folks?... Article 2.3 of the City Stenography Contract provides the Plain Text is Public Record. Only the .sgstn StenoGraph StenoNote raw file is released not the Additional File needed for Plain Text compiled/used in the Council Chamber during Public Meetings. See also

http://citystenographboston.blogspot.com/

b) How do you get new technologies and software to problematical government offices that make an easier to use stenographic record of Public Meetings of Boston City Council for hard of hearing, deaf, ESL English as a Second Language folks?...

c) How do you get the release of the Full Text of WGBH Captioning Services Captions from the Webcast/Cablecast of Public Meetings of Boston City Council?...

Muckrock.com failed, the Public Records Division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts failed and the Open Government Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General failed.

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  • 1
    You should amend this to be more general. Stack Exchange questions are supposed to be helpful for more than just one user.
    – PointlessSpike
    Jan 7, 2015 at 12:13
  • 2
    You ask. If that doesn't work, you have a lawyer ask.
    – user1530
    Jan 7, 2015 at 16:19
  • have you tried to call them?
    – Vincent
    Jan 7, 2015 at 17:15
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    >"You should amend this to be more general. Stack Exchange questions are supposed to be helpful for more than just one user." Our communities include, hard of hearing, tinnitis ringing in the ears, deaf, ESL English as a Second Language folks, concussion recovery, stroke recovery folks, folks with cognitive difficulty, dyslexic, ADD attention deficit, elderly, folks with difficulty to tolerate hard aggravating public seats of the Council Chamber, folks in city neighborhoods far afield of City Hall, Hyde Park folks, Mattapan folks, Orient Heights folks.
    – theszak
    Jan 8, 2015 at 11:46
  • >"You ask." Denial responses. >"If that doesn't work, you have a lawyer ask." Available attorneys at State Secretary & State Attorney General tried. Any affordable private attorneys with a subspecialty in this area of administrative law, municipal law, open government? >"have you tried to call them?" yep, more denial.
    – theszak
    Jan 8, 2015 at 12:00

1 Answer 1

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In general, requests for public records should be made via a Freedom of Information Act request, aka FOIA.

Technically, FOIA is a federal law, but Massachusetts has this equivalent. More here

Typically, a FOIA request will come with a cost associated with any necessary procurement by the government agency involved. Translation between formats may also end up being your responsibility.

If the issue is accessability, look at the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 which often requires governments to make records accessible to those with disabilities. NOte again, however, costs associated with the translation may have to be borne by the party requesting it.

Massachusetts has law in this regard here: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/prepdf/guide.pdf

Specifically,

950 CMR 32.00 shall be construed to ensure the public prompt access to all public records in the custody of state governmental entities and in the custody of governmental entities of political sub-divisions of the Commonwealth, and to ensure that disputes regarding access to particular records are resolved expeditiously and fairly. 950 CMR 32.00 shall not limit the availability of other remedies provided by law

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  • Public Records Division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts tried. The Determination Ordered release of the unreadable raw file not the additional file needed for Plain Text that Article 2.3 Performance of the City Stenography Contract provides for on Contract page number 3, document page 4 at muckrock.s3.amazonaws.com/foia_files/…
    – theszak
    Jan 8, 2015 at 12:21
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    Do you care about the answer or are you just trying to make a point?
    – Affable Geek
    Jan 8, 2015 at 13:24
  • @theszak If you don't know how to use the file they sent you, maybe superuser.com is a better place to ask?
    – Sam I am says Reinstate Monica
    Jan 8, 2015 at 16:02
  • @theszak - We're an internet site. There's nothing we can do to fix things except give you information. If that information doesn't help, there's nothing more we can do. Try contacting a local lawyer or local news media. The former can tell you whether you did everything right and/or there's more you can do, and the latter can make a big deal about it if they're really being obstructionist.
    – Bobson
    Jan 9, 2015 at 14:07
  • @SamIam - Not much better over there.
    – Bobson
    Jan 9, 2015 at 14:11

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