Chicago protest: bridge raising (Mayor's Office)

July 27, 2020

William Pierce

Lucy Parsons Labs

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Pierce,

On behalf of the City of Chicago Office of the Mayor, I am responding to your Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request which was dated July 20, 2020 and received in our office on the same day. At this time, the Mayor’s Office is seeking an extension of five additional working days to respond to the request for one or more of the following reasons identified in 5 ILCS 140/3(e) of FOIA:
( ) the requested records are stored in whole or in part at other locations than the office having charge of the requested records;
( ) the request requires the collection of a substantial number of specified records;
( ) the request is couched in categorical terms and requires an extensive search for the records responsive to it;
( ) the requested records have not been located in the course of routine search and additional efforts are being made to locate them;
(xx) the requested records require examination and evaluation by personnel having the necessary competence and discretion to determine if they are exempt from disclosure under Section 7 of the FOIA or should be revealed only with appropriate deletions;
(xx) the request for records cannot be complied with by the public body within the time limits prescribed by 5 ILCS 140/3(d) without unduly burdening or interfering with the operations of the public body;

(xx) there is need for consultation, which shall be conducted with all practicable speed, with another public body or among two or more components of a public body having a substantial interest in the determination or in the subject matter of the request.

Sincerely,

Tom Skelton

FOIA Officer – Office of the Mayor

August 3, 2020

William Pierce

Lucy Parsons Labs

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Pierce,

On behalf of the City of Chicago Office of the Mayor (“Mayor’s Office”), I am responding to your Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request which was dated July 20, 2020 and received in our offices on the same day. The Mayor’s Office took a 5-day extension to your request on July 27, 2020. You requested:

Requesting all emails, memos, bulletins, or other internal documents related to the decision to raise Chicago's bridges during the protests of May–June 2020. The search for these documents should include—but not be limited to—documents containing the terms "bridge" or "bridges", dated 29 May 2020 to 2 June 2020.

The Mayor’s Office does not have any non-email records regarding the decision to raise the bridges during the protests of May-June 2020.

To the extent your request seeks emails, your request is unduly burdensome. Section 3(g) of FOIA provides that “requests for all records falling within a category shall be complied with unless compliance with the request would be unduly burdensome for the complying public body and there is no way to narrow the request and the burden on the public body outweighs the public interest in the information.”

In order to effectively run an email search, the Mayor’s Office needs the following search parameters: (1) the e-mail address(es) or employee name(s) of the account(s) you wish searched; (2) key words you wish to search for; and (3) the timeframe to be searched. Without search parameters, the Mayor’s Office would need to review all department emails to determine whether any are responsive to your request. Such an undertaking would pose an immense burden on the department.

It is necessary that your FOIA request be narrowed and clarified. If you would like assistance in narrowing your request, please contact me, and I will assist you. Otherwise, for the reasons provided above, the Mayor’s Office is unable to respond to your FOIA request as currently drafted.

If you agree to narrow your request, you must submit a revised written request to my attention. The Mayor’s Office will take no further action or send you any further correspondence unless and until your current request is narrowed in writing. If we do not receive your narrowed request within fourteen calendar days of the date of this letter, your current request will be denied.

In the event that we do not receive a narrowed request and your current FOIA request is therefore denied, you have the right to have a denial reviewed by the Public Access Counselor (PAC) at the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, 500 S. 2nd Street, Springfield, Illinois 62706, (877) 299-3642. You also have the right to seek judicial review of your denial by filing a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court.

Sincerely,

Tom Skelton
FOIA Officer – Mayor’s Office