The Place Where Ludington Talks
XLFD/FOIA
A rather lengthy read but may provide a few ins and outs of how the FOIA operates and the legal fee structure. I don't recall the exact nature of your requests but recall the fees assessed, much like pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Duke Energy has made an unreasonable demand of our Township Clerk and board members going so far as requesting any hand written notes a board member may have taken on this topic, all emails and all written correspondence. Give me a break. Arcadia Township is a community of approximately 600 and around 50 of those year around. I don't blame you for being critical of Ludington officials and sorry to admit many issues are kind of like watching the Gong Show.
With all the drownings around the State as of late, a no brainer, Ludington needs to hire LIFEGUARDS, not a glass bottle/dog park cop, trained how to dial 911 like probably 80% of the cell phone users at the beach. A cost of doing business in a resort town the size of Ludington, IMO.
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Permalink Reply by XLFD on
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Robert, did you mean to add a link to your thread? I was expecting a lengthy read as promised, LOL.
Do you have the original FOIA Request by Duke Energy, and does Arcadia Township have their own FOIA policy in place? If their FOIA was rather broadbased as suggested, they should likely have to expect a fee, after all their request would probably not to be considered as in the public's interest, as they plan to use the information for their private gain or perhaps as a foothold. Such a request by them may have had some legitimate purpose, and not be used just to tie up the township clerk. I know my requests have all had some basis for doing them.
"Public record” means a writing prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by a public body in the performance of an official function, from the time it is created-- so notes on a memo pad are fair game if took by any member of a public body (includes individuals) in their official capacity.
My first FOIA Request to Ludington was to inspect the annual summaries the Building Inspector prepares each year and presents to the City Council in January all the way back to 1984. My reason was to make a listing of the properties during that time that had Building Permits issued to them, but failed to do what the City Code mandates (i.e. to install sidewalks if they have not already done so).
About one thousand property owners in the Ludington City limits do not have sidewalks along their street, many of those should have, if the BI had been doing his job. Our City's kids have to walk to school, often in the dark, with no place to walk but the street. And many of those places are close to our schools.
Anyway, the FOIA Coordinator, who happens to be the City Manager as well, quoted me a fee of $900 for this simple request. Why did it cost so much to inspect 25 annual summaries that are presented to the CC each year? According to John Shay, the reason was that there were three years where the summaries could not be found, and so he modified my request himself for me to look at each individual address file with the Building Inspector baby-sitting me during the process. He figured it would take me 40 hours to review them and I had to pay the large salary of the BI for maintaining the records' security and refiling the folders.
Why couldn't he just let me look at the other 22 years summaries? I re-requested and found it would still cost me $150, and I don't think he justified the cost. Am I to believe that these summaries are so scattered about that it would take the BI almost a full day to find? This was only the beginning of the Frustration with Information Acts.
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Spent a little while looking through it, Robert; found it very interesting. Looks like they are stalling the FOIA big time, and doing it contrary to what the law allows. Your legal staff did a good job in their research, and are to be commended.
One thing that struck me, is that CMU's Manuel Rupe was the original contact they used (after the extension) for this request, and did the replies, even though their website shows that Ms. Kelly had that duty. CMU Legal Staff
Her pay rate was substantially less than pseudo-attorneys Mr. Rupe, and Ms. Roy who both claim hours worked for this request. In fact, I think it would be reasonable to question their 2 and 4 hours worked for this request
-- except to guess that those 6 hours may have been used by them to impede and obstruct the mitigation of Arcadia's request. I think you guys have a solid case. Good luck in a quick settlement.
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Permalink Reply by masonco on
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XFLD...Does ACLU know about this discrimination situation? Just saw where they got a lady out of jail who "could not afford" an alcohol addition consultation as ordered by the court.
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"alcohol addition consultation", Masonco? That sounds like a consultation that most courts would not give out, but sign me up, LOL.
I am currently allowing my own attorney to look into the matters at hand, and trust in his competence to eventually set them aright. He has already invested a bit of time in its research.
His prior efforts on fighting corruption and defending against public wrongdoing has given me a lot of confidence in him, more than I have with the ACLU, who I have petitioned before.
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