FOIA - Chicago Office of the Mayor - Monterrey Security Communications

June 15, 2020

J. Ader

Lucy Parsons Labs

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Ader,

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 June 5, 2020 and received in our offices on June 8, 2020. You requested:

Requesting any and all communications between the Mayor's office and Monterrey Security from May 29th, 2020 to the date this request is received (June 5th, 2020)

Your request is unduly burdensome under Section 3(g) of FOIA. 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. We can run a search using Monterrey Security's domain as the search term and for the timeframe you listed, but we need a list of custodians to search from you. 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

June 23, 2020

J. Ader

Lucy Parsons Labs

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Ader,

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 June 15, 2020 and received in our office on June 16, 2020. 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

June 22, 2020

J. Ader

Lucy Parsons Labs

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Ader,

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 June 15, 2020 and received in our offices on June 16, 2020. The Mayor's Office took a 5-day extension to your request on June 22, 2020. You requested:

Requesting All emails from any of the following employee emails: - LORI E LIGHTFOOT - JENNIE HUANG BENNETT - MARGARET DECKER - RACHEL LEE LEVEN - TAYLOR DANIELLE LEWIS - NICHOLAS J LUCIUS - DANIEL BERMAN LURIE - SAMIR S MAYEKAR - CELIA MEZA

- MICHAEL DAVID MILSTEIN - HAN DINH NGYUEN - MANUEL PEREZ - ERIKA SHANELLE POWELL - YASMIN M RIVERA - ANEL RUIZ CAMPOS - PATRICK R SCHWESKA - WILLIAM SHIH - TIFFANY S SOSTRIN - JILL WINEMAN STONE

- mentioning any of these word(s)/phrase(s): "Monterrey", "security", "Monterrey Security"

- sent or received from from May 29th, 2020 to June 5th, 2020.

Your request is unduly burdensome under Section 3(g) of FOIA. 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."

We ran the email search you requested, but it came back with over 4,850 responsive emails and documents. Assuming it would take between 2-3 minutes to review each responsive email or document, it would take between 161 and 242.5 hours to respond to your request. While there is some public interest in the information request, the request places a heavy burden on the Mayor's Office's time and operations. The burden on the Mayor's Office outweighs the public interest in the information requested, and the request is unduly burdensome under Section 3(g) of FOIA.

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