# 2026-05-27 Conway PD Maintains Withholding on Appeal On **2026-05-27** the Conway Police Department issued a six-page response to Joshua Dunlap's request that it reconsider the items-D/G/H/I withholdings in `PD-2026-477`. The letter—signed "Custodian of Records, Conway Police Department" and transmitted by [[Drake Vickers]] on 2026-05-28—maintains all four withholdings. The correspondence used the word "appeal," but Arkansas FOIA does not create an internal administrative-appeal prerequisite. *Erratum, 2026-08-05:* the later City Attorney production establishes that this announcement led to an internal draft-and-review process, not a submitted Attorney General request. [[Charles Finkenbinder]] stated that his office did not request an opinion, and the produced record contains no transmittal, acknowledgment, opinion, or response ([[Draft Attorney General Opinion Request and Routing]]; [[City Attorney Review of ALPR Records Requests]]). ## Sources - [[Custodian Response on Appeal]] — the response letter itself (6 pp., OCR'd); the legal argument is captured there with verbatim quotes and page citations. - [[Draft Attorney General Opinion Request and Routing]] and [[City Attorney Review of ALPR Records Requests]] — the later records that establish the draft's route and the absence of an external submission. Gmail trail: Joshua's 2026-05-22 17:52 appeal (`19e50c97d4482910`) → Vickers' 2026-05-28 09:01 transmittal email with the response attached as `Dunlap Response 5 27.pdf` (message `19e6ee41be8b3616`). ## Significance - **The response closes the Department's voluntary reconsideration.** Section 25-19-107 permits a citizen denied FOIA rights to proceed directly in circuit court; no internal exhaustion rule had to be satisfied. The court is directed to hear the petition within seven days, and current fee eligibility uses the statute's significant-or-material-relief formulation. Whether to sue is the requester's decision. (primary public record, [Arkansas FOIA Handbook, 21st edition](../../web%20archive/2026-07-20/healthy.arkansas.gov/arkansas-foia-handbook-21st-edition-2025.md)); see [[Arkansas FOIA Enforcement and Custodian Response Procedure]]. - **The Department's legal theory hardens into a substance-versus-incidental segregability frame.** The 2026-05-22 [[Custodian Response Letter]] cited the segregability provision (§ 25-19-105(f)) and asserted that the protected information is "not reasonably segregable." The appeal response builds an affirmative case for that conclusion: the protected information is "the substance of the requested records," not "incidental information commingled with otherwise public information" (p. 5). The later City Attorney analysis questions whether the government-access fields are protected captured-plate data in the first place; the final City resolution is absent ([[T046 - Conway City Attorney Disclosure Advice vs CPD Categorical ALPR Audit Withholding]]). - **The Department rebuts Joshua's prior-production-establishes-segregability argument directly.** The response (p. 1): *"Prior production does not waive a statutory restriction or FOIA exemption, nor does it establish that all similar records or later-requested records are reasonably segregable for purposes of Ark. Code Ann. § 25-19-105(f)."* And on Item G specifically (p. 3): *"The prior production of a shorter Federal Searches export does not control the Department's current legal review of a full-deployment-life export."* The Department's position is that the prior March–April 2026 export's redacted-officer-fields production was its discretionary act, not an admission that the record type is categorically segregable. - **The Department rejects the § 12-12-1804 retention argument on its merits.** Joshua's appeal had argued that if pre-April-2025 audit logs contain "captured plate data," then § 12-12-1804(a)'s 150-day retention cap is squarely implicated — either the logs shouldn't exist (statute violated) or they don't contain captured plate data (no § 12-12-1808 basis to withhold). The Department's response (p. 4): *"The Department does not interpret that retention provision to create a public right of access to audit logs or to override disclosure restrictions in Ark. Code Ann. § 12-12-1808 or exemptions under Ark. Code Ann. § 25-19-105."* That is, even a statutory breach does not create disclosure rights. This is a legally available reading but it leaves an unanswered factual question: do pre-April-2025 audit logs contain captured plate data, and if so, are they being retained in violation of § 12-12-1804(a)? - **The announced Arkansas AG opinion request was not submitted on the produced record.** Smith circulated a draft on May 26. Finkenbinder later described a miscommunication and stated in Gmail that his office did not request an opinion. The record therefore does not support a pending external-review status. - **The "Custodian of Records" signature still does not identify the author.** The 2026-05-22 [[Custodian Response Letter]] and the 2026-05-27 appeal response are signed in the institutional title. The later record shows [[Clayton Smith]] coordinating draft responses and Finkenbinder reviewing July response chains, but it does not establish authorship of the May letters.