You may wait a while for public records in Corpus Christi

If a city can’t hand over a copy of its public information policy in fewer than 15 days, one might wonder what hope there is for a legitimately complex request.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported this weekend that its own city took more than two weeks to come up with that relatively basic document, while San Antonio and Lubbock each filled the same state Public Information Act request in a day. Why the discrepancy? In Corpus Christi, the paper reports, each and every request has to meet the approval of city lawyers and several layers of officials.

The result: An average response time for requests of more than 11 days, with the city sometimes seeking multiple deadline extensions as it decides whether to make records public.

The city council is set to take up a review of the public information request-process this week, The Caller-Times reports.