More County Records Will Soon be Searchable Online
Fayette County Commissioners approved a contract for a web hosting service that will allow anyone from the public to search records at the County Clerk’s office online.
Typically, anyone wanting to view county clerk records like land deeds and liens must go to the County Clerk’s office in person. A few third-party providers have in the past purchased some digitized records from the county and offer them online, sometimes for a fee. But the records offered online by those third party providers can sometime be out of date or incomplete.
County Clerk Brenda Fietsam presented a plan to Commissioners at a meeting last Thursday, Dec. 31, that will allow the public to view the Clerk’s records online. Fietsam said constituents asked her to launch this service when she ran for election
“Basically what we’re doing is providing a public service to the residents, said County Clerk Brenda Fietsam. “When I was running, this is something my constituents really wanted – having the records online. And with the current situation with COVID, I appreciate the idea of not having people come into our office from all over Texas.”
Edocs, the company that provides record management software to the County Clerk’s office, will also provide a records search website for the County. The records available online will be unofficial, Fietsam said. If someone needs an official certified copy of a record, they can contact the County Clerk’s office to obtain one for a fee.
County Judge Joe Weber raised a concern about private information such as social security numbers that sometimes appear in county clerk records, especially older records. Assistant County Attorney Blake Watson said most people have stopped using social security numbers in official records due to the risk of fraud. However, Fietsam said some older documents do contain social security numbers. Many times, she said, the person is deceased. She said her office regularly checks records and redacts private information like social security numbers. Moreover, she said, unredacted records are already available through third party search companies.
“Its already out there,” she said. “But the good thing is, anyone will be able to search their name, and if they find some private information, they can call our office and fill out some paperwork and we can permanently redact it.”
“This is also another backup,” Fietsam said. “If something terrible happened here, we would still have this backup online.”
The County’s cost for the new service includes a setup fee of $500 plus a one-time license fee of $5,000. There will be an annual maintenance fee of $3,000.
Commissioners approved the contract unanimously. Fietsam said the new search page should be online in a few weeks.
In other business at Thurs day’s meeting, Commissioners met in executive session to discuss the County’s possible purchase of the old Pioneer Bank building on the Courthouse Square in La Grange. Last month, Commissioners authorized Weber to negotiate for the purchase of the building. Weber said the County may use the building to house the County Auditor and Tax Assessor-Collector offices.
Commissioners met for about 20 minutes in closed session last Thursday. After the meeting, Weber told the Record that the County is continuing negotiations for the purchase.