The Sunflower paid Wichita State $593 for a records request filed under the Kansas Open Records Act, and more than a quarter of the pages were completely redacted, black rectangles.

Out of 2,102 emails received as part of the request, 539 pages were blacked out.

928 pages had some kind of redaction.

The request was for emails sent and received by President Bardo, Lou Heldman, Teri Hall, Anna Lanier, Tony Vizzini, Andy Schlapp, John Tomblin, Rick Muma, and Paige Hungate that included the words sunflower, chance, swaim, ymca, the y, flats, MWCB, Murfin, Barrett, Weigand, and Crossland.

When he fulfilled the request, WSU’s attorney David Moses left the following response:

“This overly broad, ambiguous and vague request, which includes a request for records that do not relate to the legitimate concern to the public, took staff more than 100 hours to complete, many more than were initially quoted, and has taken away time from other matters. Further, many of the emails pulled into this search were non-responsive to your request. Those emails have been removed from this response. An invoice for time spent in excess of the original estimated time, for which you have paid, will be sent to you in the near future.”

Asked to elaborate on “near future,” he did not respond through an email last week.

If WSU charges The Sunflower for the 100 hours for redacting the documents, it could cost The Sunflower $4,600 for the heavily redacted emails.