By Bill Lueders, for the Wisconsin FoIC It happens all the time! A member of the public or a representative of the press will file a request under Wisconsin’s open records law, which applies to all state and local government entities. But instead of records, the requester gets a bill. “The city will require pre-payment in full before we begin fulfilling your request,” read one such response. “Please remit $642.42 to cover the above-referenced costs,” it added. The notice said this was just an estimate and, if necessary, “we will bill you for the additional cost.” Two weeks earlier, the same city official demanded that the same citizen requester pay $6,887.79 on top of the $1,000 she had already remitted, to cover the cost of locating records in a different request. To read more of this column, please click on the headline.