County Judge: Staff overwhelmed with public record requests from Fenenbock’s consultant

The County of El Paso is adjusting its policy when it comes to public information requests.

County officials said this move came about after an individual made more than 100 separate requests just this month.

The county established a time limit of 36 hours of work per requestor every year. Any requestor whose information requires more than that time would have to pay for the work associated with fulfilling the request.

County judge Veronica Escobar said the man who’s been requesting the information is Mark Sanders. The El Paso Times reports owns Third Coast Consulting, a company hired by democratic congressional candidate Dori Fenenbock.

Escobar has told ABC-7 in the past that she is strongly considering running for congress. She said all of Sanders’ request have put a strain on her staff, keeping them from doing other work.

“They have been very, very taxing on our county attorney’s office, on my staff, on the lawyers who are looking through to make sure we’re being responsive and redacting constituents’ private information,” Escobar said. “One of my staff members — one request — took the entire eight-hour day.”

Fenenbock told ABC-7 over the phone that Sanders is providing consulting for her campaign but that she’s never spoken to him personally. She said the information Sanders is asking for is nothing out of the ordinary, and that she’s getting similar requests with EPISD.

Escobar said Sanders is asking for information about her agenda, emails with constituents and business expenditures. Escobar called the excessive requests harassment.

“We absolutely want to be transparent so it’s not about trying to withhold information,” Escobar said.

With the new policy in place, a requestor will have to pay money after the 36-hour limit. Any person working on the request will be paid $15 an hour.

A spokesman for Fenenbock’s campaign said they’re still working to get a statement on the matter. As soon as we receive that statement, we will update this article.