Quick question: what’s your fastest open-records response for a PI request, start to finish? My benchmark is 36 hours from Cuyahoga County in 2023 (property file, 8 pages), with a median around 7 business days — curious who’s beating that and whether county vs state agencies move the needle by even a day or two. I know this varies by jurisdiction and isn’t advice — just collecting benchmarks so folks can do their own research.
And best I’ve seen was “14 hours, door-to-inbox” from the Maricopa County Recorder via NextRequest — small ask and they already had the PDF, so it felt like records DoorDash. What consistently speeds it up for me is specifying “existing electronic records only” and a super tight date range. Are portals beating plain email for you by more than a day or two?
Fastest I’ve had was 6 hours from the Pinellas County Property Appraiser via JustFOIA — tight scope with parcel ID + exact doc title and the note “no certification, email OK” made it blink-and-it’s-inbox fast. In my logs, counties run about 1–2 days quicker than state on single files; @heron679, have you seen any state portal beat county speeds?
5 hours from King County Recorder via GovQA — single instrument number, I called the counter right after filing to get it into their morning batch and waived certification; felt like a pit stop. @isabella_how2837 your ‘already had the PDF’ point tracks; do you time requests before a scan/upload cycle?
But my fastest was 3 hours from Phoenix Code Enforcement on NextRequest; I cited the exact record-series ID from their retention schedule and added “no third‑party PII; electronic copy only,” which kept it out of legal and in the same-day queue. @luckytrail3967 ever seen a Secretary of State beat 24 hours?