Marcy,
I understand your concern. A lot of times we encounter situations like this -- could a particular form of activism actually backfire and end up increasing the size/scope/cost/power of government? In some hypothetical cases the answer would seem to clearly be "yes", so it behooves us to be careful what we do and how we go about it. In this case though, my thoughts are as follows:
• My records requests were seeking information I really would like to know, and which directly relates to activism I hope we'll engage in, ammunition for writing ballot arguments, etc., and I think these are the best kinds of requests.
• If the city government hired some additional employees to respond to requests for information, would that be a bad thing? My calculation is always along the lines of asking questions such as, "Does this change tip the balance of power in favor of the people, or the government?" and "Does this reduce or increase the overall amount of harm being inflicted by government?" In that calculation, making it easier to find out what government officials are up to might be worth a slight additional expense, just as increasing the budget of the Public Defender's office might result in an overall harm reduction.
• I agree that requesting government information to which there is no practical conceivable advantage in having made public, just to waste the government's time, may be a net negative, since there is a chance it could lead to more government spending as you say. I say "may" because it's also possible that it could result in harm reduction by occupying the time of government personnel with a task that will not have any adverse impact on the public and taking them away from some other task that might be doing harm!
• There is also the consideration that if politicians seek more money in order to fund additional employees to work on responding to requests for information, this may interfere with them seeking more money for other things! (Observe for instance how they typically plan very carefully which bond measures, tax increases, and so on to place on voters' ballots, out of justified fear that if they ask for too much, it may lead more voters to reject everything.)
• Nevertheless, since those things are uncertain, I agree with trying to limit our requests to information which we think really will clearly benefit the public and the libertarian agenda to have made public. There are so many legitimate things deserving of more sunshine that if we crafted our requests carefully with proper advance research we could probably send a dozen a day for years on end without ever descending into frivolous requests!
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))