FOIA Friday from Ann Arbor

from Ann Arbor.com:

Ann Arbor was ranked as the third most walkable city in the United States, an award presented by Prevention Magazine in 2008. Our city takes sidewalks seriously, with a sidewalk inspection program that ensures homeowners take care of the sidewalk squares in front of their homes.

Even with all of this civic effort, there are inevitably bits of the sidewalk infrastructure that are substandard. Here's an account of two of those locations - one of which has been repaired, and one of which is still in need of repair - and how the Freedom of Information Act process helps understand how work gets done inside a large, complex and ever changing civic organization.

The current FOIA request

Requesting information about the city's knowledge of the current state of repair for a portion of a sidewalk is relatively straightforward...[The author] structured the core portion of [his] request as follows:

Read more here.

Proposed changes in public records request law raises concerns

PRESCOTT - A question over what constitutes a "voluminous" request for public records caused a postponement this week in the Prescott City Council's request for a change in state law.

During their voting session on Tuesday, council members agreed to pull the resolution concerning public record requests from the list of proposed law changes it is submitting to the League of Arizona Cities and Towns.

...

The postponement occurred after two local residents - Tom Slaback and former City Councilman Robert Luzius - urged the city to reconsider a resolution that seeks to change state law to allow cities to "recover actual costs" when responding to requests for public records.

More here.

Some N.J. clerks 'playing keep-away' with public records.

The Government Records Council in New Jersey has ruled on 1,503 denial-of-access complaints since 2002, and many of the rulings favor those complaining, The Star-Ledger reported. In some cases, rulings are finally granting citizens access to records they requested two years ago, records that should have been released within a week of the request. "Most of the time, they just want to keep people from getting the records in time for the next meeting or the next election," says attorney Walter Luers, who has won OPRA lawsuits against several municipalities." The people on the inside don't want the people on the outside to get the information." Not only is OPRA flawed in how clerks are handing requests, but the GRC panel is also missing two members, which has caused it to cancel meetings and thereby increase its backlog.

There are 47 items on the agenda, and in a small meeting room in Trenton, on a Tuesday morning, the Government Records Council is slogging its way through the list of complaints from citizens who have been thwarted in their attempts to access public records.

An hour into the session, it's clear: New Jersey's Open Public Records Act is flawed.

Ruling after ruling by executive director Catherine Starghill goes against agencies that have denied -- wrongfully -- public access to their records. In the GRC's final orders, municipal clerks, board secretaries and other record custodians are found to be guilty of wide-ranging and unnecessary OPRA violations.

More here.

Fla. city installs city open-records kiosk

The City of Alachua in Florida installed a kiosk at City Hall that allows residents to search for public records without having to file a request, Alachua Today reported. The computer's search engine contains thousands of public records, including e-mails, ordinances, etc. However, the system is limited in that some records haven't been uploaded or haven't been converted into a format that is readable by the search engine. Michael Canney, a resident, said all the city's records aren't on the kiosk, including the city manager's e-mails. “To get certain public records, you have to jump through a lot of hoops and pay large amounts of money,” he said.

The City of Alachua recently installed a kiosk at City Hall for residents to get public records without having to request them from the city clerk.

Alan Henderson, deputy city clerk, said the search engine at the kiosk will eventually give Alachua residents access to ordinances, resolutions and anything considered a city public record.

The engine contains thousands of documents, but the system is limited as city officials continue to reformat and add more records.

More here.

Ill. boards stall to release election candidate data

Although the deadline to run for local office was Jan. 26, the Daily Herald in Chicago has not been able to get the addresses and, in some cases, names of candidates from the Wauconda Library District, Oakbrook Terrace Township, Naperville Township and Deer Park Township.

Today's topic might sound self serving, and to a certain extent it is, but it's really all about providing you, the local voters, with what you need to know.

Here's the problem: Far too many of our municipalities, schools, libraries, parks, fire and township boards are refusing to release blatantly public information about the people who are running to represent us.

We can't tell you about these candidates and you can't learn about them yourselves if none of us can find out who they are and how we might contact them. It's as simple as that. It's a basic part of a free, working democracy.

More here.

Somewhere in Iowa, a Government Official Wants to Charge You...

for reviewing records requests.

Not fulfilling them, mind you, but merely for processing them.

My pal Al Cross over at The Rural Blog has the scoop:

The latest proponent of this bad idea is Democratic Gov. Chet Culver of Iowa, whose office started charging such fees after The Des Moines Register made "two unusually large and unconnected requests for public e-mails" in March, Lee Rood of the Register reported last week. "The requests also came after the governor’s office had mulled for more than a year about rare requests for large numbers of public information that take a lot of agencies’ time to compile," Rood writes, quoting Culver General Counsel James Larew as saying that charging fees to retrieve public documents is supported by case law and has prompted requesters to scale back their requests, and the new fees were intended to “discipline” requesters, not restrain them. "The charges can be levied when a request for records is estimated to take more than three hour of lawyers’ time, Larew said."

This stinker of an idea is worth watching. As Al said, bad ideas like this have a way of germinating...