County Responsibilities

Response Deadline

The County of Powhatan must respond to your request within 5 working days of receiving it. Day One is considered the day after your request is received. The 5-day period does not include weekends, holidays or any other days Powhatan County is closed for business.

Obtaining Reasons for Requests

The reason behind your request for public records from the County of Powhatan is irrelevant, and you do not have to state why you want the records before we respond to your request. FOIA does, however, allow the County of Powhatan to require you to provide your name and legal address.

Requesting Large Numbers of Records

If it is practically impossible for us to respond to your request within the five-day period, we must state this in writing, explaining the conditions that make the response impossible. This will allow us an additional seven working days to respond to your request, giving us a total of 12 working days to respond to your request. In the case of criminal investigative files requested pursuant to § 2.2-3706.1 of the Code of Virginia, we are allowed an additional 60 working days to respond to your request, giving us a total of 65 working days to respond to your request.

Responding to Requests

FOIA requires that the County of Powhatan make one of the following responses to your request within the 5-day time period:

  • We provide you with the records that you have requested in their entirety
  • We withhold all of the records that you have requested, because all of the records are subject to a specific statutory exemption. If all of the records are being withheld, we must send you a response in writing. That writing must identify the volume and subject matter of the records being withheld, and state the specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows us to withhold the records.
  • We provide some of the records that you have requested, but withhold other records. We cannot withhold an entire record if only a portion of it is subject to an exemption. In that instance, we may redact the portion of the record that may be withheld, and must provide you with the remainder of the record. We must provide you with a written response stating the specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows portions of the requested records to be withheld.
  • We inform you in writing that the requested records cannot be found or do not exist (we do not have the records you want). However, if we know that another public body has the requested records, we must include contact information for the other public body in our response to you.
  • If it is practically impossible for the County of Powhatan to respond to your request within the 5-day period, we must state this in writing, explaining the conditions that make the response impossible. This will allow us 7 additional working days to respond to your request, giving us a total of 12 working days to respond to your request. In the case of criminal investigative files requested pursuant to § 2.2-3706.1 of the Code of Virginia, we are allowed an additional 60 working days to respond to your request, giving us a total of 65 working days to respond to your request.