Dear City of Rye Officials:
I respectfully request, yet again, that an official from the
City of Rye please notify me of how many copies are responsive to my Freedom of
Information Law request of 12/17/12 for Rye Golf Club catering proposals and
invoices. This request was part of my June 28th FOIL that Comptroller Fazzino
said (on October 10th) he never received.
Please check the record for the
veracity of my statement, here.
I have only been told by Clerk Nodarse that I will need to
pay a fee of $65/hr for redacting documents. I've subsequently sent
advisory opinions from the Executive Director of the NYS Committee on Open Govt
supportive of, what I believe, is the fact that agencies, according to law,
cannot charge a fee to redact documents.
The reason being obvious, that a municipality could use that as an
excuse to place large financial burdens, or obstacles, between the public and
public's right to access records.
As of now, I have never been informed if there are 10 or
1000 documents responsive to the Whitby Castle catering operation FOIL in
question. I would appreciate if a representative of the city could please live
up to the spirit of the law and provide me with this information–which I should
have received over a week ago in the initial response by the city to my
request.
Members of Rye Golf Club have rallied and come forward,
offering to pay the fee for these documents–therefore, I would like to approve
the charge for them. However, I will need to be made aware of the charge first,
as per FOIL law. We will deal with the potential improper charging of fees for
public records by the City of Rye Records Access Officer, Mr. Pickup,
separately.
It is my hope that either the City Clerk, the City Manager
or the City Attorney will properly notify us of the number of documents (@25
cents/pg) that we will be paying for. I
look forward to approving the fee for these copies once it is disclosed to me,
so we can approve the estimate and receive theses documents–which are central
to the 'recent events at Rye Golf Club' currently under a $136,000
investigation.
This is our third request for this information. While some
might find not following the law, and ignoring basic questions that should be
answered according to the law, discourteous–I simply ask for your reply.
With all due respect. -LD
________________________________________
From: LD10580
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2013 1:32 PM
To: dnodarse; cparker; jfazzino; jkillian; jsack; kwilson;
spickup; lbrett
Cc: xxxxx@dos.ny.gov
Subject: FW: Re; 12.17.12 - FOIL Response
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