County Plan to Sell Court Records Assailed : Information: Private firms object to proposed fees, conditions for use of 24-hour database containing civil files.

An ambitious plan to market Los Angeles County court records is drawing fierce opposition from private business interests that contend the county is overstepping its governmental role and potentially threatening the public’s right to access to information.

Since 1993, the county has been working to devise a number of marketing programs to increase the ways information is transmitted to the public and in turn raise revenues for cash-strapped county services and departments.

But many in private industry say the county’s new plan to sell civil files from the Superior and Municipal court systems raises a host of troubling questions about public data as a financial resource.

They charge that the conditions and fees the county is attempting to set on access to the court information unfairly puts government in direct competition with private industry and amounts to regulation of public documents.

The county wants to require that those who wish to tap into its new, round-the-clock database pay a $50,000 start-up fee, provide a hefty deposit and pay royalties for information which--if obtained through normal channels during business hours--would only carry a nominal fee and costs of copying.

Among those being asked to ante up are information giants such as Mead Data, TRW and Dunn & Bradstreet. Private industry could put the computerized information to a variety of uses for its clients, ranging from credit checks to loan verification to legal research.

But some private enterprises contend that the county is in effect trying to copyright public information.

“What’s at stake is the entire concept of government making money off of what should be public information,” said Thomas K. Houston, an attorney who represents a number of private data corporations that buy and resell information.

The group has drafted a lawsuit challenging the proposed marketing plan as unconstitutional and threatens to sue the county should the plan be approved when it comes before the Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks.

The plan places government “in the dangerous position of being not only the sole provider of public information but also the arbiter of when the data becomes accessible, the manner in which it is utilized and potentially who among the general public may utilize it,” said a letter to board Chairwoman Gloria Molina, drafted by the Information Industry Assn., a Washington-based lobbying group.

County officials strongly dispute the notion that the marketing plan will restrict the flow of public information, contending instead that under the new system, even more information will be available.

The county is advertising its new system as an “enhanced and optional” service that provides more detailed and timely access to files via computer, on a 24-hour basis. The public will still be able to gain access to the same information the old-fashioned way, by walking up to a counter and asking for it.

But the county argues that it should be able to recoup some of the costs of developing and providing information in a format that has market value. And officials say that the private firms are not giving away the information and are only grumbling because they are being asked to share part of their profits with taxpayers.

“If private businesses wish to have specialized attention and service, we have made it possible for them to work with government and do that; the taxpayer in general should not have to subsidize this,” said John M. Doktor, marketing manager of the county Information Systems Advisory Body, which has coordinated the development of the new system.

County officials said it will cost $500,000 to bring comprehensive court files into the database, but estimated the system will earn about $500,000 annually once it is up and running. Critics of the plan, however, contend it will be far more lucrative for the county.

The dispute between the county and the private companies is in many ways a product of the high-tech age of computer access and advanced information technologies that can produce a dazzling array of vital statistics, court transactions, real estate records and the like at the touch of a keystroke.

Through the collection and management of this data, the county’s revenue generation potential is enormous. Many officials--and not just those in Los Angeles County--are now arguing that financially burdened governments straining to cope with reduced resources should be allowed to tap that potential.

Under special legislation enacted in 1992, six counties, including Los Angeles, were granted permission to launch pilot programs in which they would charge fees for “optional and enhanced” services provided to the public if those services required the county’s expertise.

However, critics note that the legislation also says that providing these services should not “disadvantage those in need of the basic services who opt not to purchase the optional services.”

The opponents point to this and say the county attempted to move beyond the intent of the legislation by quietly awarding an exclusive no-bid contract to a firm, CDB Infotek, to develop the computerized system that others are being asked to buy into. The other firms contend that they have effectively been shut out of the process and denied access to computerized information that CDB is now able to peddle exclusively to its own clients.

CDB officials did not return calls seeking comment Friday.

Jack Reed, president of the Fullerton-based Information Resource Services Co., says he was told by Doktor and other county officials that his company could not gain access to the information unless it signed on to the controversial proposed agreement.

He said that even though his company could afford to meet the county’s condition, smaller firms would be shut out. And he questions clauses in the proposed agreement that allow the county to limit and restrict uses of the data once it is obtained.

“They do not allow other uses of the data such as for CD-ROM or bulk purchases, so they are not giving us rights to this data, they are actually taking away rights that we have today,” he said. “And they want to limit who you can sell this information to. If they don’t like newspapers, they can say, ‘Don’t sell it to them,’ if they don’t like private investigators, they can say, ‘Don’t sell it to them.’ Does that sound like what public records were meant to be?”

However, others view the county’s marketing plans as a long overdue recognition of the benefits that government provides to society at large--benefits that should be rewarded.

“I don’t think it’s a bad dialogue to have about what government does that creates things of value for society,” said John Kirlin, a USC professor of public administration who works out of Sacramento. “I think it perfectly reasonable for the government to question why they should just give something away to the private sector. Should they give it away as a windfall or find a way to capture that value? I think this is a very beneficial development.”