M anchester Alderman Thomas Crosslin spoke with the Times about a proposed lawsuit by the city that would seek to block a records request by an unnamed citizen.

Crosslin said that the action approved by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen during the March 3 meeting was not taken lightly and the suit is not intended to block transparency by the city.

“We do not turn away reasonable records requests. We have never turned away public records requests,” he said.

“No reasonable person would think that these requests are things that could be accommodated over and over again.”

Public records requests are received through the Finance Department, and depending on the nature of the request, can involve the city department head spending hours researching the documents asked for.

The requests in questions, according to the context of Tuesday’s BOMA meeting, were single submissions, but list over 20 documents that span multiple departments.

Crosslin said he felt it is important that the city resolves the issue within the guidelines of state statutes.

“I understand the optics are not good. At the surface it looks like we are trying to prevent transparency. That is not the case at all. What we are trying to do is manage a situation that is preventing our city employees from doing their jobs,” Crosslin said.