Lawsuit Against City of Ludington Seeks Relief Against Unlawful FOIA Fees

At the beginning of my second comment at the June 10th, 2024 meeting of the Ludington City Council, my process server gave the city clerk the defendant's copy of a lawsuit I filed against the City of Ludington (COL) in the local circuit court on June 6th.  The complaint, shown in full below, was accompanied by a court summons and a motion to disqualify sitting 51st Circuit Court Judge Susan Sniegowski, due to her husband being a long-term city employee/officer, among other concerns.  This disqualification has been granted multiple times in past lawsuits against the COL.

The COL has already heard an administrative FOIA appeal at the April 22 LCC meeting, but did not address the problems I had pointed out, but rather the city attorney/FOIA Coordinator tried to justify an unlawful fee scheme that would make every minute of any police video from a dash or body cam chargeable for three minutes of separating exempt material from non-exempt material, even if there is clearly no exempt material in the recording.

 

The very greedy fee scheme would also claim many more minutes of footage than what the requested record asked for.  In the three videos requested, I had videos of two of the arrests made on a home security camera and a MCSO body cam already in my possession.  Both arrests took a matter of minutes and if all videos of all responding officers were made from the time they arrived to the outdoor scene to the time they put the arrestee in their vehicle, they would add up to less than 20 minutes for those two incidents in total.  The unedited videos I have possession of have nothing that would be exempt by FOIA.  The FOIA 'editor' was present at one of the arrests and would know that there wasn't.  

As noted in the complaint, the FOIA is explicit in saying that only actual costs to the public body for the materials requested can be charged to the requester.  For these two requests with nothing to edit out, the COL is asking for nearly $600 to separate out non-exempt material.  Your Ludington City Council, two attorneys amongst them, acting as jurors in the administrative appeal, thought that was a fair and just cost, and they overlooked the other unlawful scheme described in Count 1 of the complaint and the public extortion that occurred when they accepted my deposit of over $100. 

This lawsuit seeks that money back and looks for punitive damages for the COL, whose policies of late has been against accountability and transparency.  It's additionally very sad that both recordings already in my possession show two unlawful arrests, one shows outright police brutality by LPD officers.   The one I haven't seen yet, promises to have potentially worse violations of the laws and police protocol.  This indicates that part of the reason for creating a new fee structure after giving body cam footage freely for years is to cover up the illicit actions of a police force out of control.

 

 

COMPLAINT AGAINST FOIA FEE VIOLATIONS BY THE CITY OF LUDINGTON AND FOR DISCLOSURE OF RECORDS CONSTRUCTIVELY DENIED


Now comes Tom Rotta, pro se, and as his complaint attached to his summons states as follows:


                                                        INTRODUCTION

  1. This is a civil action under the Freedom of Information Act, hereafter FOIA, MCL 15.231 et
    seq. for appropriate relief of multiple violations of that act by defendant, CITY OF LUDINGTON, hereafter COL, against a citizen/journalist, TOM ROTTA, hereafter ROTTA, by demanding costs not permissible under FOIA to three separate requests for body cam footage of the Ludington Police Department, hereafter LPD.  
  2. The fee scheme practiced by the COL's FOIA Coordinator, hereafter FOIAC, constructively denied access to what are deemed public records by using two methods, both of which are repugnant to the FOIA statutes which demands that any fees charged are based on actual costs to the public body of providing public records through the FOIA process.
  3. This lawsuit seeks disclosure of the records constructively denied by the unfounded ransoms put on them by the COL FOIAC, and appropriate relief for the unlawful actions that have kept them held hostage by that agency.  

 

                                                                  PARTIES

  1. Plaintiff TOM ROTTA is a resident of the city of Ludington in Mason County in the state of Michigan.
    5. Defendant CITY OF LUDINGTON is a municipal corporation formed under the laws of the
    State of Michigan and located in Mason County (Michigan).
    6. Defendant CITY OF LUDINGTON is a public body as that term is defined by Michigan's
    FOIA, specifically MCL 15.232(h)(iii).

 

                              JURISDICTION, VENUE, AND TIMELINESS

  1. This court has jurisdiction of FOIA fee appeals by statute pursuant to MCL 15.240a(1)(b).
  2. Venue is proper in this case pursuant to MCL 15.240a(4) as the CITY OF LUDINGTON public body is fully contained within Mason County.
  3. As per MCL 15.240a(1)(b), this civil action is timely filed within 45 days of notification of the determination of the administrative fee appeal that occurred on April 22, 2024 that was conducted by the COL's city council.

 

                                                  GENERAL ALLEGATIONS

  1. The public policy of the State of Michigan in the FOIA is that people "are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent them as public officials and public employees, consistent with this act. The people shall be informed so that they may fully participate in the democratic process."
  2. Plaintiff ROTTA, a journalist and community activist, has made FOIA requests to the COL since 2009 in order to verify, refute, or uncover information for articles of local interest he creates on his website.  The COL has been responsibly responsive to these requests over the last 5 years before 2024.
  3. ROTTA in the course of researching articles started requesting body cam footage of certain incidents involving the LPD starting in July 2021 through the FOIA.  He would request body cam footage of 6 LPD incidents during 2021, all of which were supplied for no charge to ROTTA.  
  4. ROTTA would request body cam footage of seven more LPD incidents in 2022.  These were all provided at no charge to him.  Some incidents had several pieces of footage from each responding officer, some involved footage occurring in private places, such as residences.
  5. The COL's current FOIAC would start at that capacity at the beginning of 2023, ROTTA would request body can footage of six more LPD incidents that year, they would all be provided free of charge.  
  6. Before any requests for body cam footage had been made in 2024, ROTTA had filed paperwork initiating recalls against the mayor and spearheaded recall efforts against three other city councilors citing five different political reasons for their ouster.  Other contentious issues were also in play between the two parties in this litigation at the time.  
  7. Rather than respond to a FOIA request for bodycam footage of an arrest that took place fully outdoors in non-private places within 8 minutes of arrival by supplying footage as they had done in the prior 19 FOIA responses, the COL FOIAC on 2-11-24 decided to charge $229.38, supplying a 'Cost Estimation Worksheet' that had never been approved by the COL (EXHIBIT 1:  2-11-24 Cost Estimation Worksheet)
  8. This fabricated worksheet indicated that there were 9 separate videos, costing $25 each and included an additional $4.38 in clerical labor.  Such a worksheet had never been used by the COL before 2024 and such ‘per-video’ charges had been declared unlawful by the state FOIA when it was reformed in 2013.  
  9. Nothing in the state FOIA or the publicly available COL FOIA policies indicate that such a 'per video' charge is lawful, both indicate that only 'actual costs' to the public body can be charged to FOIA requesters.  When compared with the worksheet officially adopted in 2015 by the COL which was publicly available on their website (EXHIBIT 2:  Official COL FOIA Cost Estimation Worksheet), the charges in the 2-11-24 response are fraudulent, impermissible, and if enforced by the COL, would lead to credible charges against the FOIAC of public extortion.  
  10. On 2-14-24, ROTTA paid the 50% deposit on the response ($114.69) in order to effectuate the disclosure of the records.  Immediately thereafter, he went to file a criminal complaint with the Mason County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) and described to them the public extortion attempted and the COL's acceptance of the ransom ROTTA had just paid.  
  11. ROTTA at the same time had made a FOIA request to the MCSO for the same incident, as their deputies were also on-site.  Among their responses included Deputy Bradley Becker's body cam footage which has been uploaded on Youtube (EXHIBIT 3:  Becker body cam footage, not attached).  
  12. On objective review, the Becker footage shows multiple LPD policies broken by LPD officers leading to an unlawful arrest and incarceration.  
  13. These multiple infractions by LPD officers could further explain why the COL FOIAC changed fee policies for this one incident in an attempt to dissuade disclosures given freely in the past, and without any formal change in FOIA policy by the COL.
  14. In response to ROTTA's concerns of the COL FOIAC putting up unlawful charges to block what should have been eight-minute videos showing unlawful police actions by the three LPD officers involved, the FOIAC dropped the $25 'per video' charges, claimed 5 more videos (14 altogether) were discovered and invented a totally new way to charge for body cam videos that was never part of the COL's FOIA fee policy on paper or in practice. 
  15. This crafted, extortive fee scheme claimed that it would take three minutes of a police captain's time to review each minute of recorded video, even when there was nothing in the record that needed to be exempted, as it was in this case-- no edits were made in the Becker footage of EXHIBIT 3 depicting an arrest made outdoors lasting about eight minutes.  This amendment would nearly double the first estimate to $423.80 and effectively claim that it would take a police captain over 8 hours to review about 15 minutes of non-exempt video.  
  16. Having already submitted the deposit in good faith for the FOIAC's first attempt at public extortion, ROTTA could not find anywhere in the amended extra-extortive response of the time frame they would take in complying with the response as mandated in section 4(8) of the FOIA.  
  17. ROTTA would file an administrative FOIA appeal on March 5th to the head oi the public body (EXHIBIT 4, 3-5-24 ROTTA appeal email) on the two responses and their lack of giving any kind of way to get public records that a deposit had been put on three weeks before.  

29) At the March 11, 2024 meeting of the COL city council, the minutes (EXHIBIT 5, 3-11-24 LCC meeting minutes, not attached), the FOIAC would misrepresent the dispute, ignore the terms of my appeal, and suggest that there was no 'time-frame' issue involved, the council affirmed the FOIAC's decision, as one might expect when the FOIAC is their city attorney even when he is violating their policies and the law.

30)  On 2-18-24, ROTTA received another FOIA response using the new fee system crafted by the FOIAC for the body cam video of an arrest made on 2-15-24 by the LPD.  

31)  The incident report eventually received after a fee appeal shows that 3 body cams were part of the record and that the incident itself probably lasted under 15 minutes (the report only has the starting time; the estimate is based on what occurs in the report).  30 minutes of body cam footage never requested were a significant part of the response's cost.

32)  As this arrest happened in a "private place" under MCL 780.312(c), the FOIAC had the option to deny ROTTA's access to the video portion of the record (as a prior FOIAC did), instead the FOIAC asked for $879.41 (EXHIBIT 6:  Zeller arrest cost estimation sheet), indicating it would take a police captain over 16 hours to separate exempt material out of only two videos, one covering over 5 hours and assuredly going well beyond the scope of the request.  

33)  Had the COL FOIAC followed past practice, they would have blacked out whatever happened inside the residence and released audio only of the body cams.  This would have been preferred over the attempt at public extortion made in the response, as this could have been used for journalistic purposes without violating the privacy rights of the residents that were arrested.

33) Had ROTTA known that this crafted fee scheme would be used to constructively block access, he would have made the request through the people who were arrested that day, who were looking for ROTTA's assistance in bringing to light what the police did in this arrest to violate policy and/or the law.  By MCL 780.314(4), they had a right to view those records without exemptions, just as they would get through discovery to provide for their defense against the charges.

34)  Covering up the video portion of two (or three) 15-minute videos should have taken a trained police clerk less than a half hour to accomplish, but the FOIAC claims it takes a police administrator over 40 hours to make this simple edit and that ROTTA would have to wait an additional two weeks since the administrator has other tasks.

35)  The COL FOIAC has claimed since then that only the police chief and captain are trained to handle separating exempt material out of FOIA requests.  If true, this is not only an extremely inefficient system when administrators are paid about three times the clerical staff wage to do what amounts to clerical work, but also lends credence to the two public extortion claims made by plaintiff in this complaint by defendant's omission of failing to train clerical workers to do this routine clerical work so that the FOIAC can charge three times more to ROTTA and other citizens who want to see the footage that their taxes pay for already.

36)  On March 31st, 2024 ROTTA would receive another response to a FOIA request for bodycam footage of an arrest that took place on 2-9-24 on the lawn of a local business owner.  The arrestee had the arrest caught on a security camera sound and video, the footage shows a complete disregard of LPD's written policy and the use of excessive force by two officers including the aforementioned police captain, who took some time off from editing videos to help assault a citizen and allegedly puncture his lung in the process.

37)  The security camera video (EXHIBIT 7, not attached) shows pre-arrival of the LPD up to LPD leading the citizen off in their vehicle.  It is less than three minutes long, is never in a "private place" and nothing on the body cam video of the arrest from start to finish should be exempt from disclosure.  

38)  The FOIAC disagreed in responding, relaying that it would take the LPD captain involved in the incident, who would know that there was nothing exempt to be found in the body cams of the arrest, two hours to affirm that, putting a price of $108.24 in the FOIA response (EXHIBIT 8, Oquist FOIA fee worksheet).

39)  As ROTTA crafted an administrative fee appeal for the three responses, the COL council met on April 8th, 2024 and changed their FOIA policy (under their FOIAC's direction) so that the COL FOIAC had much more discretion in the city's FOIA policy.  As that new policy (parts of which seem in conflict with the state FOIA law) was not in place during the FOIA responses for the three involved in this lawsuit, ROTTA enters the old policy, last amended in 2019, as the city's relevant policy (EXHIBIT 9:  COL FOIA policy through April 8, 2024, not attached due to length).  

  1. On April 13, 2024, ROTTA would file an administrative appeal with the Ludington City Council as the head of the public body (EXHIBIT 10:  Fee administrative appeal email).  It would summarize the abrupt change of policy made this year and list the 19 FOIA requests made since 2021 for body cam videos up to this year that were assigned no fees and were mostly more complex in nature than the three being appealed.  It would clarify that the body cam footage desired in each case was for the actual arrests of the parties
  2. With three of the seven voting judges on the panel compromised by being under the recall process through the efforts of ROTTA, the council affirmed the FOIAC's fee estimations, with a slight adjustment made on the second due to a rounding error made, reducing it by about $10 to $879.  
  3. The FOIAC would give a lengthy discussion on theoretical legal concepts, but never addressed the core issues of why the policy changed abruptly without council action and whether the costs assigned were actual costs of separating exempt material out of the records.  He appears to have thought his changes to the FOIA policy made after these three responses at the prior April meeting were retroactive in nature (EXHIBIT 11:  April 22, 2024 LCC meeting minutes, not attached).
  4. Unsatisfied with that result and seeking disclosure of the records and justice, ROTTA has filed this FOIA fee appeal by right under MCL 15.240a.  

                                                          COUNT 1:

VIOLATION OF STATE FOIA AND CITY-PUBLISHED FOIA FEE PROCEDURES IN 2-11-24 FOIA RESPONSE

44)  The allegations of paragraphs 1-43 are repeated as if fully set forth herein.

45)  Section 4(1) of the FOIA says any "fee must be limited to actual mailing costs, and to the actual incremental cost of duplication or publication including labor, the cost of search, examination, review, and the deletion and separation of exempt from nonexempt information."

45)  In asking for a $25 fee for every video (even for a 34 second video involving a phone call caught on body cam that assuredly did not happen during the arrest as seen in the Becker video) the FOIAC assigned a cost that is not lawful as per section 4 of the FOIA or the then-published fee policies of the COL.

45)  Exhibit 3 indicates that any videos of the arrest asked for would not have exempt information thereon and that there would be at most three body cam videos (not 9 or14 as claimed) as three LPD officers were involved in the incident that lasted about eight minutes.  

46)  MCL 750.214 states:  "Any person who shall willfully and corruptly demand and receive from another for performing any service, or any official duty, for which the fee or compensation is established by law, any greater fee or compensation than is allowed or provided for the same, and any public officer, for whom a salary is provided by law in full compensation for all services required to be performed by him, or by his clerks or deputies, who shall willfully and corruptly demand and receive from any person any sum of money as a fee or compensation for any services required by law to be performed by him in his said office, or by his clerks or deputies, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

47)  The response asking for a "$25 per video" when the COL's FOIA fee estimation sheet has never featured such a charge meets the criteria for public extortion.  The FOIAC's creation of this extralegal worksheet this year in order to bypass the law and receive fees he was not entitled to indicates that it was a willful act to make his unlawful effort seem legit.  

48)  As the FOIAC has not described why any part of this arrest seen on Exhibit 3 was actually exempt from disclosure, the fees associated with the removal of exempt information should be non-existent.   This would make the fees down to zero, the disclosure of the records long past due, and the $114.69 deposit fully refunded to ROTTA with interest. 

49)  Additionally, being that the record shows the misdemeanor of attempted public extortion, that became public extortion once ROTTA's deposit was accepted, the public body through actions of its FOIAC has arbitrarily and capriciously violated FOIA by charging an excessive fee, and section 10a(7) of the FOIA indicates the court should order the public body to pay a civil fine for this violation of $500.00  which shall be deposited in the general fund of the state treasury.

50)  Additionally, by that same section, the court may also award, in addition to any actual or compensatory damages earned, punitive damages in the amount of $500.00 to the person seeking the fee reduction.  

51)  As charging the FOIAC with a misdemeanor is beyond the scope of this FOIA fee appeal, punitive damages should be awarded in its place in order to show that the FOIAC's actions were morally, professionally, and legally wrong.  

52)  Additionally, If the court determines, in an action commenced under this act, that a public body willfully and intentionally failed to comply with this act or otherwise acted in bad faith, the court shall order the public body to pay, in addition to any other award or sanction, a civil fine of not less than $2,500.00 or more than $7,500.00 for each occurrence (section 10b of the FOIA).  This fine is to be deposited in the general fund of the state treasury.

53)  Assigning such funds to the state for this wanton act of public extortion should prohibit the COL and its FOIAC from future acts of bad faith and corruption seen here and serve as a warning to the COL and other public bodies to not follow such a path in the future.

                                                             

                                                                COUNT 2

VIOLATION OF STATE FOIA AND CITY-PUBLISHED FOIA FEE PROCEDURES IN AMENDED 2-11-24 FOIA RESPONSE

54)  The allegations of paragraphs 1-53 are repeated as if fully set forth herein.

55)  After being caught in a public extortion scheme and having that reported to a police agency on 2-14-2024, the FOIAC's amended response indicate two things:  that the prior response was improper and unlawful, and that he was immoral enough to attempt public extortion a second time.

56)  The new fee scheme that once again went contrary to the FOIA, was that every minute of body cam footage would require three minutes of review to separate exempt material out.  As noted in paragraph 45, the FOIA allows for only actual costs incurred for the review and separation out of exempt material.

57)  Exhibit 3 as noted shows that there was nothing to separate out during the outdoor arrest.

58)  The actual cost of reviewing and editing out exempt material should be estimated based on whether there are exemptions likely to be found in the record.  Someone editing films for television could presume there is nothing to edit out of a G-rated movie, but that a lot of effort would need to be used for an X-rated movie.  As arrests go, this was rated G-- outdoors, no crime victims present, very dark, with only brief violence by officers when they unlawfully arrested the suspect who never resisted.

59)  With access to the incident report and to the three involved LPD officers-- and with this second chance-- the FOIAC set a fee standard that violates the FOIA much like his prior attempt to subvert the law in Count 1.  

60)  It is arbitrary and capricious to suggest that it takes a police captain over one full day to separate exempt material out of at most three body cams running about 8 minutes when no specific exemption has ever been claimed by the FOIAC for this incident that would pertain to the arrest videos.  Then indicate there are five newly found videos and nearly three hours of footage to review.  

61)  Using a 'per minute of footage (x3)' fee policy is roughly equivalent to a 'per video' standard for assigning fees to FOIA responses, and neither policy was recognized in the FOIA or the COL's FOIA policies.  The FOIAC's fee schemes do not apply to actual costs incurred by the public body, but was used either punitively against ROTTA, as an attempt to make money off of FOIA requests, and/or keep the embarrassing records from being published.  

62)  Once again, this prima facie met the elements of attempted public extortion, nearly doubling the cost of the prior extortion, adding videos that fall outside the scope of the request, suggesting that there was over a day needed to separate out nothing from at most three videos of a rated G arrest.  

63)  The relief requested in paragraphs 49-52 in Count 1 should equally apply here in this count:  a civil fine of $500 and a fine of $2500 to $7500 for acting in bad faith to the state treasury, and a $500 payment to the plaintiff for punitive damages.

 

                                                                    COUNT 3

VIOLATION OF STATE FOIA AND CITY-PUBLISHED FOIA FEE PROCEDURES IN AMENDED 2-18-24 FOIA RESPONSE

64)  The allegations of paragraphs 1-63 are repeated as if fully set forth herein.

65)  The FOIAC would continue the 'per minute of footage (x3)' policy used in Count 2, a procedure disallowed by the FOIA and the City's FOIA policy as there is no attempt to assign the actual costs to the COL in preparing the records.

66)  As noted, the FOIAC could have denied the records by the body-worn camera statutes as the arrest actions happened primarily in a "private place", he chose instead to assign a value of nearly $900 for two videos and indicated that it would take over 16 hours to review for separating out exempt material of a 15-minute arrest on at most three body cams.  

67)  Had the FOIAC followed the policy of the prior FOIAC, the separation could have easily been accomplished in minutes by blotting out the video when officers entered the "private place" and bleeping the sound when they illegally used the LEIN on a bystander as noted in the report, a report which was eventually given out only after the administrative fee appeal when the FOIAC stated he had already given the report to ROTTA at the appeal.

68)  On information and belief, such routine editing would actually take under one half hour to perform for somebody trained to do so, even if they have risen to the rank of police captain or chief.  

69)  If such separation would take more time than my estimation, the FOIAC has yet to give any idea what it would be other than his unlawful amended fee policy that charges three minutes for every minute reviewed.  

70)  Once again, this prima facie met the elements of attempted public extortion, adding videos that fall outside the scope of the request, suggesting that there was over two days needed of a police captain's time to put a black square over the screen from up to three videos of a 15-minute arrest, and covering up multiple violations of police policy by assigning a ridiculous and unlawful fee.  

71)  The relief requested in paragraphs 49-52 in Count 1 should equally apply here in this count:  a civil fine of $500 and a fine of $2500 to $7500 for acting in bad faith to the state treasury, and a $500 payment to the plaintiff for punitive damages.

 

                                                                 COUNT 4

VIOLATION OF STATE FOIA AND CITY-PUBLISHED FOIA FEE PROCEDURES IN AMENDED 3-31-24 FOIA RESPONSE

72)  The allegations of paragraphs 1-71 are repeated as if fully set forth herein.

73)  In most instances under the FOIA, an appellant of a response is at a loss because he generally has little idea what information is being withheld from him.

74)  In this case, the arrest of a man in his backyard was caught on his home security system, sound and picture.  From the point before the police arrived, threw the man down on the ground for no apparent reason, and until they placed him in their police vehicle was under three minutes.  

75)  One of the two arresting officers was the police captain trained in redacting body cam videos, who should have known that no redactions were needed.  Four exemptions were claimed on the FOIA response for the video, none of which applied in this case, as the security footage shows, and the body cam footage would affirm. 

76)  The only edit needed for the video would be to cut it down to the incident, which would have already been done for the prosecutor and the man's attorney as the LPD would charge the man with resisting and opposing when the security camera footage clearly shows an assault by the officers on the man, grabbed from behind while going up stairs of his back porch and threw onto the ground with impunity; his injuries included a collapsed lung from the unexpected attack. 

77)  Despite the fact that no separation of exempt material needed to be done on the body cams, other than perhaps to corruptly cover up the officers' brutality and violation of procedures, the FOIAC nefariously drafted a response that asked for two hours of redaction time for the two three-minute videos where the captain would have known there was nothing lawfully redactable therein.

78)  FOIA fee law is specific on saying that only actual costs can be charged for those requesting public records, this was the fourth instance that the COL through its FOIAC ignored such dictums in trying to either profit from their criminal extortion scheme, cover up the illegal acts of their LPD officers, and/or assign punitive charges to someone who seeks justice for those who have their rights trampled on.  

79)  Once again, this prima facie met the elements of attempted public extortion, adding video footage that fall outside the scope of the request, suggesting that there was two hours needed of a police captain's time to do no lawful editing of two videos of a 3-minute arrest, and covering up multiple violations of police policy by assigning a contemptible and unlawful fee.  

80)  The relief requested in paragraphs 49-52 in Count 1 should equally apply here in this count:  a civil fine of $500 and a fine of $2500 to $7500 for acting in bad faith to the state treasury, and a $500 payment to the plaintiff for punitive damages.

 

                                                   RELIEF REQUESTED

81)  WHEREFORE, Plaintiff Tom Rotta respectfully requests this court to--

  1. A)  Determine that the COL through their FOIAC and complicit city council has gone against the basic tenets of charging fees for FOIA requests as found in the state's FOIA and the COL's FOIA policies active at the time, to whit, by charging either a '$25 per video' fee or by designating a greedy algorithm that would charge labor costs of three minutes per minute for any body cam video whether it is likely to contain exempt material or not, then adding the times of other videos that have nothing to do with the original requests. 
  2. B)  Determine that the FOIAC's course of conduct throughout these four counts of FOIA fee violations were blatant and provable attempts at public extortion as defined by Michigan law when further determining sanctions in this case.
  3. C)  Declare that the fees in all four counts are not allowable by law and determine a fair cost for the responses using the guidelines the COL used since 2021 and before this FOIAC went rogue in order to constructively deny FOIA requests by assignment of unlawful fees abhorrent to the FOIA.
  4. D)  Determine that Defendant acting in bad faith demanded four fraudulent, improper, and illegal fees in response to the three FOIA requests and impose a civil fine of $500 and a bad faith penalty of fine of $2500 to $7500 for each of the four counts, as allowed by FOIA, to be bestowed to the general fund of the state treasury for this infamy.   
  5. E)  Impose punitive damages of $500 for each count ($2000) on the defendant payable to the plaintiff due to their inability to follow the state and local FOIA policies and their attempts to hold public records hostage from him unless their extortive and unlawful demands were met.
  6. F)  Enjoin the COL from using their current unlawful policy in the future determinations of FOIA fees and embrace the concept contained in the FOIA which allows only reasonable and actual costs to apply.
  7. G)  Award court costs and disbursements due to plaintiff pursuant to MCL 15.240a(6) for prevailing in his complaint.  
  8. H)  Grant all other relief that is warranted and just.

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Permalink Reply by Freedom Seeker on June 12, 2024 at 8:48am
I hope you prevail, X. The fees are ridiculous extortion and may be coverup for wrong doings. Getting a fair Judge now may be a hurdle. Will be praying for justice for the people (as you represent).
Permalink Reply by XLFD on June 12, 2024 at 1:29pm

Thanks very much Freedom Seeker.  Fair judges are getting harder and harder to find, but I won't mind an unfair judge who will show their true colors and agree with the city attorney's legal theory that a couple of minutes of fully non-exempt videos should cost $120 or $450 to the general public, as it will show they are in the wrong job.  

Freedom must be demanded by the oppressed, it is never voluntarily given by the oppressor.  That reworking of MLK's quote applies to the oppressive shackling of information that the city attorney has sullied his reputation with and our council has supported unashamedly.  

Permalink Reply by Willy on June 13, 2024 at 6:53pm

When reading your lawsuits it becomes understandable why attorneys charge so much money. The cost of schooling and education along with the time spent researching cases after passing the bar, then time spent in court, the cost of insurance and office expenses, filing fees, etc. makes one realize it is not an easy or cheap way to make a living.

I hope the citizens appreciate what you are doing for them. Thanks for all you have done and are doing. And the fact that you must endure the slings and arrows sent your way by the woefully ignorant and corrupt Government agencies makes what you have accomplished, heroic.

Permalink Reply by XLFD on June 15, 2024 at 12:56pm

I was hoping that the arrival of a new city manager in Mitch Foster, a new city attorney in Ross Hammersley, and the ascendancy of a non-elitist councilor in Angela Serna around 5 years ago would last longer than it did, because it basically gave me a legal rest for a few years when the COL was playing by the rules for the most part.  But Hammersley has become a jaundiced pawn of the Barnett regime, Foster went bad and is falling out rather than become a bigger villain, and Serna got beat by a handful of votes to a proven loser after the council team mercilessly went after her for exercising her First Amendment rights in defense of the folks.  Unfortunately. more lawsuits will be following, and not just from me.

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