The High Cost of Getting Information

[Eve Alone]

I was asked to make a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request by XLFD.  On June 16,2011 the LDN reported that a life ring was missing and it cost about $250 to replace Life Ring Missing.  XLFD did some virtual shopping on the net, and found that those were some very expensive life rings.  If you Google Shop for life rings, here is the first page you'll get  Life Ring Prices.

You may notice, that some 30" rings that look a lot like our life rings are going for around $50.  If those don't come with rope, this is even cheaper to buy at around $15 Throw Bag for Life Ring.  The type the city has got would fetch around $35 Stearns throw bag w 70' rope

I suck at math, so X figured that came out to between $65 and $85.  Around a third of what the City spokesman said.  That's quite a disparity, so X decided to check out the City's receipts and at the same time, the qualifications of the new Stearns Park Rangers. 

If you recall, City Councilor Walter Taranko, former Ludington Police Chief remarked at a meeting that he was of the hope that these new rangers would not have life-saving skills, because that would potentially increase the liability of the City if a drowning death occurred.  I thought that was very stupid and uncaring, and so did X, who had coined the term "Dick and Wally's Recovery Rangers" for them when he wasn't calling them the Bikini Patrol. Named after City Attorney Dick Wilson and CC Taranko.  Based on the other cartoon characters here

 

Why spend a couple seconds saving people, when you can spend days looking for their bodies?  Anyhow my FOIA request was: 

Under provisions of the Michigan Freedom of Information Act (MCLA 15.231 et seq; MSA 4.1801 (1) et seq) I am requesting, preferably in electronic records sent to this E-Mail address, or failing that, to personally inspect the following public records:

 

1)  All purchase invoices of the life rings, throw ropes, posts, signs, etc. purchased by the City of Ludington in 2011 with the $40,000  budgeted for the purpose of 'water safety' for this year. 

2)  The completed applications received for the 'beach patrol (ranger)' positions received by the City this year, and any public records detailing the job description and the rationale for selecting people for these jobs.

 

If you need any clarifications of this request, please reply expediently to this E-mail address.

 If you determine that some of the requested information is exempt from disclosure, please detail what is being withheld and cite the exemption under FOIA.

If fees to comply with this request exceed $20, please contact me at this E-Mail address with those fees enumerated.

 

We expected to either be invited to City Hall to view a couple of invoices and receipts or have them scanned to me free of charge for the first part.  The second we expected some minor editting of personal exempt information, and maybe some copying charges besides.  What we got:

 

I have attached the City of Ludington ’s response to your FOIA request.  The charge in the amount of $127.14 to locate, separate exempt from non-exempt material, and copy the records is itemized as follows:

 

Water safety records: 3.5 hours x $15.34/hour = $53.69 + $28.35 for fringe benefits + 39 pages at $0.25 per page = $9.75 for a total of $91.79.

Beach patrol records: 2.0 hours x $14.30/hour (including benefits) = $28.60 + 107 pages at $0.25 per page = $26.75 for a total of $55.35

 

Total cost = $147.14 less $20 public assistance affidavit = $127.14 

 Upon receipt of a payment from you in the amount of $127.14, the City will release the records to you.

John Shay

City Manager

 

Even though the FOIAC is getting better at explaining costs, I have no idea what to make of it.  We asked to inspect the purchase invoices of water safety equipment for this year, and were charged $91.79.  No exempt data there, and if the City needs to look up this information for its own benefit, does it really take a clerk half a day to do so (3.5 hrs.)? 

Or does the City want to hide the fact that they brought these life rings for a third of the price they put on their lists, and pocket the rest, and then do stunts like this to hide that fact later?  What is it, Mr. Shay?

[Willy]

I really believe that the Attorney General should investigate Ludingtons Practice of putting public information out of reach of it's citizens by charging ridiculous prices. The intent of the FOIA act was to make public information accessible to the public, not to hold the information hostage until unecessarily high fees are obtained. There is something extremely fishy about Ludingtons government officials and their actions only add to the suspicions of corruption and deceit.

[XLFD]

When you see him want to charge nearly $100 for the inspection (no copying expenses) of non-exempt purchase invoices of a few 'water safety' purchases by saying it takes someone 3.5 hours to retrieve them for viewing, something is amiss. 

The second part of the FOIA was meant to determine the method the City used to pick the candidates for "Dick and Wally's Recovery Rangers".  You can't just ask the folks at City Hall a direct question about it, they just will rely on their fallback-- no response or comment.  I think the public should know whether they chose these Recovery Rangers on the basis of their lack of rescue skill.  The current City Attorney from Manistee, Dick Wilson, has the City of Ludington thinking that rescue is somehow 'bad' and recovery is somehow 'good'. 

He fails to learn anything from the Beck v. Haik ruling that cost Manistee around a million bucks. 

[Guidothesemipsuedocaptitalistpig]

My thought here is the good ole boy crony network isn't based on legal facts, but on relationships of those working in the cities legal dept. A responsible lawyer would have point to the Beck v. Haik ruling that cost Manistee around a million bucks. Rather than advice the city less qualified is better.  

 

[XLFD]

I honestly think that Richard Wilson, who according to the Traverse City paper was involved with that case, thinks the City and County lost that ruling was due to the existence of a private water rescue unit in Manistee, and not to the fact that Manistee's 'public safety' officers unwisely chose body recovery over potential rescue.

Ironically, a FOIA request may have played a pivotal part in that decision, when the 911 tape of that night was destroyed after a FOIA request had been made for it. 

[Willy]

It seems to me that by purposely choosing someone who is less qualified, they are admitting that the action of hiring someone not qualified was intentional and that they knew a lack of a qualified person could  set up the possibility of someone drowning due to the lack of qualified individuals at the drowning scene. Therefore the City is admitting to being negligence.

[XLFD]

Some may ask about why I just don't ask the City Hallers such questions and resort to FOIA requests.  I have and sometimes still do send them letters or E-mails asking them questions.  But do they answer.  No.  A FOIA request on the other hand, lawfully mandates a response from the FOIAC under civil penalties if they do not.

It's kind of like citizens and taxes.  If taxes were optional to pay, would you give any of our inefficient governments your money?  Neither would I, particularly when I have to pay hundreds of dollars just to see the records of what they use the money for.

[Willy]

Regarding the FOIA. The budget package information that the Councilors recieved should have all the information about the $40,000 and should be readily available. If not then the City is purposely putting up barriers to the free flow of information or they are operating a very sloppy ship. In either case this recent FOIA fee proves deceipt and or incompetence. Either way somones head should roll and since the responsibilty falls back to the Mayor I would say he is either not qualified, doesn't give a damn or he's intentionally trying to hinder citizens rights to accessible Governement. Either way, Ludington is not getting good representation.

[XLFD]

I believe that Ludington should do what many other cities that are unlucky enough to have a City Manager ruining running them, let the City Clerk handle FOIA requests.   Budget package information would be good to see, but purchase invoices confirm (or not) the numbers.

When the DPW Supervisor Shawn MacDonald says these life rings cost around $250 in a newspaper of record (albeit the Ludington Dairy News), and the same life rings can be gotten for $52 on the net, there is a problem somewhere.  No doubt, there's nearly $200 in 'administrative expenses' for each. 

[AQUAMAN]

The common sense of this matter isn't there anymore. Any new budget file that was just passed and implemented in the last few months is readily handy and accessible, and surely doesn't take 3.5 hours to locate from ancient archives, and make a simple copy of. In addition, if you just hired a couple of new people for park rangers why would it take another 2 hours to locate these fresh personnel files. I can't believe it takes 146 pages of information to satisfy the request, more like less than a dozen pages would seem sufficient, and the prohibitive cost of $127 is ridiculous at best. If this isn't a big dodge to keep the information secret and hidden, than they sure have camouflaged it to look like it. I would simply ask them for the basic costs of the life rings with rope and the personnel files of those hired, not all interviewed etc.. Tell them to simplify the request, not elaborate on every move made and every little detail.

[XLFD]

As I said yesterday, they do not answer direct questions from me, unless I make it a FOIA request.  And until recently, John Shay hasn't even described what the 'unreasonably high costs to the public body' that make such sums add up so high.  But as you say, all of what I have asked for are recent purchases and recent hires.  I could understand the deletion of exempt personal data on applications taking someone fifteen minutes to do, and some extra copies being made of a page of each application, but that's all I expected.