by @BarryRafkind in 311 Requests, Government Reform, Investigative Reports, Public Records / FOIA Requests
Posted on July 28, 2011 at 1:26 am
Last Modified on August 16, 2011 at 10:01 pm
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As the following examples indicate, the Curtatone administration routinely ignores, delays, or over-charges for data sought under the state’s public records law, in contrast to what the Mayor calls an “open, transparent and efficient government”.
Here are just two examples of the many instances in which Mayor Curtatone professes to deliver on that promise:
On his list of accomplishments, it says (note he recently wrote a S.N.op-ed about his ACE program):
Created an “Accurate, Courteous, Easy” (ACE) Customer Service Initiative. Mayor Curtatone is committed to providing excellent customer service to all Somerville residents, which requires a transparent, open city government.
In an Apr 18, 2008 City press release, he is quoted as saying:
Today the City of Somerville is a model of open, transparent and efficient government
Despite these claims, public records requests made by myself and fellow resident-journalist eila are often ignored, delayed, or over-charged.
Ignored requests (no response was received):
- My Dec. 21, 2010 request for “All records in the City’s 311 database in 2009 and 2010″. This one is ironic because it’s about the 311 program, the Mayor’s flagship ACE program meant to deliver transparency and openness.
- My May 21, 2011 follow-up email questionnaire to my previous Parking Ticket Trends Story. Technically, this wasn’t filed under the public records law, but that’s no excuse for it being ignored.
- eila’s Mar 7, 2011 request for a complete list of all city-owned properties
- eila’s Apr 26, 2011 request for waiting lists of public housing in Somerville (resubmitted on July 24, 2011)
- eila’s Jun 23, 2011 request for Building Permits issued for Teele Square Fire Station Renovations
- eila’s Jun 29, 2011 request for documents relating to HUD-funded Economic Development at 349 Broadway
Delayed responses (response was delayed past the legal limit of 10 days following the request, or included a significant delay during discussion)
- My Nov 2010 request for Appeals of Fines and Parking Tickets included a delay of over a month between Matt Dias’ Nov 23, 2010 response and his Feb 18, 2011 response.
- My May 20, 2011 request for parking ticket data took a month to receive an acknowledgment.
- eila’s Apr 7, 2011 request for documents relating to the construction of 12 ADA ramps. Acknowledgment of request was timely, but a substantive response took about a month followed by another month of delay until completion.
Over-charged costs (seemingly unnecessary costs are added to (1) photocopy or print and documents that could easily have been sent in the original or scanned electronic format, and/or (2) review documents for sensitive information that would need to be redacted)
- The Somerville Journal was charged over $7000 for 3 months of municipal employee emails and then over $3000 when the request was modified to just 1 month. See Auditi Guha’s 8/20/2009 article Somerville still quotes hefty price tag for former employee e-mails.
- At an Oct 2009 Board of Alderman meeting Ward 6 Ald. Gewirtz submitted a resolution to review the City’s policies on public records requests. See Meghann Ackerman’s 10/12/2009 article How much should Somerville’s public records cost?
- Tom Nash/Post Somerville’s Sep 2009 request for copies of municipal campaign finance reports cost $100 before the City eventually decided to put all the reports online for free.
- My Nov 2010 request for Appeals of Fines and Parking Tickets was initially priced at $226.50, then lowered to $196.50 despite all the data being taken from an electronic database. Data was eventually supplied as a scanned PDF instead of as a more accessible tabular format.
- My May 20, 2011 request for parking ticket data was priced at approx $900.00 despite the fact that a virtually identical request was fulfilled free of charge when submitted by NECIR’s Joe Bergantino.
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No surprise here. See http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2008/06/secrecy-autocra.html; http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2008/06/secrecy-autoc-1.html; http://www.thesomervillenews.com/archives/2339; and http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2008/07/secrecy-autoc-1.html.
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Barry,
I hope you don’t mind if I call foul here. For instance, on your Nov. 8, 2010 request for information (http://www.muckrock.com/foi/view/somerville-ma/appeals-of-fines-and-parking-tickets/202/) Matt Dias took the time to work through the request with you, explaining your alternatives and our associated costs in detail. He gave you 12 different responses and was nothing but genial in each one of them.
You’re making detailed requests that involve a significant amount of work to fulfill and a department director who has a full plate of things to do is devoting no small amount of time to addressing the complications and costs of providing you with the information you seek.
And apparently the reward for the City taking that time to work with you is you then go online and blast us. For the record, we will continue to work with you and provide you with data and records (or at least cost estimates for data and records in cases where cost is involved).
I also plan on personally tracking down where some of these requests went awry (and thanks to MuckRock that will be easier for me to do, big shout out to Mike Morisy). I’d actually like to sit down with you to get some of your perspective on this matter. We should always give a timely response. So I don’t want to come across as saying you don’t have a legitimate gripe in some cases.
Yet you have spent a lot of time interacting with diligent people who work for the City and who have helped fulfill some rather complex information requests you have submitted. I think that also deserves some recognition. It must be deflating for someone to do all of that work and then read something like what you have posted.
Michael Meehan
Director of Communications
City of Somerville
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Hi Michael,
You’re absolutely right that when Matt Dias has engaged with me on records requests, he has provided exceptional service. I said as much in the credits to my story on appeal trends. It’s true that faults tend to get more attention than successes, and I am as guilty as anyone for perpetuating that imbalance, so I’ll try harder to lend recognition where it is due in the future.
I can imagine how hard it must be for those hard-working people like Matt Dias to read such criticism, but you can also imagine how deflating it is for those of us who put in the effort to submit records requests only to see them sometimes ignored or not handled appropriately.
I’d appreciate you tracking down the requests that I mentioned and I look forward to your follow-up. I’ll contact you off-line to set up a meeting.
Thanks again for your input!
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Michael, if the City created a 311 order for each records request, then it would probably help the administration keep track of them. Your thoughts? Would copying 311 on records request emails help?
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yes, the fact that over 65% of the city’s tax-fed goods and services are provided in a manner that says, “residents with disabilities are not welcome- but if you want to participate, you’d better take the time to ask first,” has led me to request a number of planning and review documents.
Most of my requests, since 2005, have been ignored, but when an honest city staff person responds, it truly gives me hope. Maybe someday, we can all work together towards a more humane community.
Some of the ignored requests are extremely puzzling. For example, in September, 2008, the BOA allocated $65,000 from the Capital Projects Stabilization Fund for a space needs analysis and Municipal Facilities Master Plan. This was the 3rd such city inventory study, since 2004, that i’m aware of.
Yet, two years and at least four requests later, a simple request for a complete list of city-owned properties is still being ignored. Surely such a list is readily available in electronic format.
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