Well, now, looky here: Communications which pertain to the transaction of public business, and are sent or received on personal electronic devices during city council meetings or study sessions fall within the definition of “public records” under FOIA. In the interest of full disclosure to the public, denying the records would be inconsistent with the…
Tag: Freedom of Information Act
The Housing Task Force, Its Surprise Consultant & Trust
The last full meeting of DeKalb’s Safe/Quality Task Force was November 16 and I attended. A funny thing happened there. The meeting started out with members expressing dismay that the city had unilaterally brought in a consultant to work on some of the same issues the Task Force is addressing, namely property maintenance code enforcement…
DeKalb Threat Data by Neighborhood
A member of the City of DeKalb’s Safe/Quality Housing Task Force recently offered me copies of the crime data the group has been poring over this summer — but only if I promised not to publish it, because it’s not for public consumption! Perhaps we should be training these committees, commissions and whatnot in the…
Reduction in Force: AG’s Review of Denial of Info is Complete
If you require a recap of last year’s Reduction in Force (RIF) plan and how the Request for Review under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) came about, please see New Developments in Reduction in Force Story. The results of the AG’s review, in short: In the matter of the denial of the cost-benefit analysis…
Even More Airport Trouble
DeKalb County Online has scooped everyone once again with the story of a lawsuit filed by Midwest Flight Academy, Inc., against DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport manager Tom Cleveland. The complaint is centered around Cleveland’s treatment of Midwest that allegedly differed from his treatment of Fly America, including the claim that under similar circumstances, Midwest was…
State Employees & Workers’ Comp
Received this morning: this link to the Belleville News series of investigative reports on state employee’s Workers’ Compensation claims. The latest, published April 20, details the paper’s attempts to obtain information regarding successful claims. Recent and upcoming opinions delivered by the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor that pertain to Workers’ Comp-related Freedom of Information Act…
New Developments in Reduction in Force Story
As reported in Reductions in Force Outcomes, one of the decisions the City of DeKalb made last year in implementing the Reduction in Force (RIF) was to lay off AFSCME-affiliated workers in June even though it was contractually obligated to pay them their regular compensation through December 2010. Nobody questioned it much at the time,…
Library Finally Shows Up
DeKalb Public Library (DKPL) showed up for a dog-and-pony show at City Council last night, armed with packets of information that, once again, escaped being received and filed publicly by Council. The only conceivable reason for such a presentation is to rewrite the narrative of its dealings of the past three years into the meeting…
‘Open and transparent’ town locks up public records as bars buy village president’s insurance – chicagotribune.com
‘Open and transparent’ town locks up public records as bars buy village president’s insurance – chicagotribune.com.
IPLARs FY2008-10
After the jump, see the table containing selected information extracted from three years’ worth of Illinois Public Library Annual Reports (IPLARs) filed by the DeKalb Public Library with the Illinois State Library. Included: information on revenues, expenditures, programs, attendance, resources/holdings and other numbers and answers I found interesting for one reason or another. Not included:…