The work to restore public access to Lubbock County’s public records continues, according to Michael Dalby, commissioner for Precinct 1.
Department heads and directors, along with a handful of elected officials, met Tuesday to again work on the issue. Online public access to court records was lost in 2021 after a switch from KiCorp to Tyler Technologies. Private data was revealed online as part of the switch.
The issue came to a head in June during budget talks when County Clerk Kelly Pinion said public access was “nonexistent.”
People could come ask her staff to find a record but could not look it up for themselves either online or in-person at the courthouse. Computer terminals in her office were disabled right alongside the online search portal.
“I know I sound like a broken record, but we are closer than we have ever been to fixing this issue. … The department heads involved in this feel that we are just maybe two to three weeks away from finalizing all of this,” Dalby said.
After Pinion made her claims to the county commissioners, Dalby – who was newly elected last November – took the lead to find a solution. Dalby gives credit to others for doing the day-to-day work.
That work is testing the search feature over and over. County officials and employees run search after search to see if confidential information comes up. They’re meeting weekly, Dalby said, to discuss problems as they come up.
“The real credit goes to the men and women who are the running this data in addition to their normal job duties,” Dalby said.
The county clerk and district clerk have both said publicly their departments are ready to go public with online records. Some recent issues come up with records for Justices of the Peace.
The justices are working on it.
“They were willing to roll the sleeves up, jump in and really cement their piece of the puzzle,” Dalby said.
Dalby is not in favor of charging money for online access – although he conceded other officials might feel differently.
“We want to make this to where a citizen can come to the courthouse and they can search on a terminal. That’s if they don’t have a computer or Internet access at home, they can come to the courthouse,” Dalby said.
