After two hours of debate, the South Bend Common Council Monday night tabled a bill that would let the city charge the public new fees for police dash and body cam videos.
The bill would create new $50 hourly fees that would be capped at $150 for a video that takes at least three hours to redact confidential information.
City Attorney Jenna Throw said city legal staff spend about 18 hours a week processing the video requests.
City corporation counsel Sandra Kennedy said her staff is “under water” from all the time it takes.
“We’re not cheating anybody," Kennedy said. "We’re just trying to get people to, instead of asking for any and all videos of a certain event, to try to tell us, what you would like to see.”
But Council member Oliver Davis, a critic of the bill so far, said the city administration should have asked the council to fund more staff to process the videos, rather than charging people who likely can’t afford the fees.
The council voted 9-0 to table the bill until their next meeting Aug. 11. Sometime before then Council Member Sheila Niezgodski said she’ll call a special meeting of the Personnel & Finance and Residential Neighborhoods committees to further debate the bill.
