Invitation & Guest List for Governor's BDS Executive Action

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the New York State Freedom of Information Law (1977 N.Y. Laws ch. 933), I hereby request the following records:

Lists of invitees and the final guest list for the ceremonial signing of Executive Order No. 157 on 6/5/2016 at the Harvard Club in Manhattan.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Russel Neiss

To whom it may concern,

I appeal the rejection of my foil request for "Lists of invitees and the final guest list for the ceremonial signing of Executive Order No. 157 on 6/5/2016 at the Harvard Club in Manhattan," which were claimed as exempt because they 'are “inter-agency or intra-agency materials which are not: statistical or factual tabulations or data; instructions to staff that affect the public; final agency policy or determinations; or external audits . . . .” Public Officers Law § 87(2)(g)'

The Court of Appeals has held that §87(2)(g) is intended to protect the “deliberative process”. In its consideration of the matter, the Court found that:

"... the purpose underlying the intra-agency exemption, is 'to protect the deliberative process of the government by ensuring that persons in an advisory role [will] be able to express their opinions freely to agency decision makers' (Matter of Xerox Corp. v. Town of Webster, 65 NY2d 131, 132 [quoting Matter of Sea Crest Constr. Corp. v. Stubing, 82 AD2d 546, 549]). Consistent with this limited aim to safeguard internal government consultations and deliberations…” [Gould v. New York City, 89 NY2d 267, 276 (1996)].

It stretches the imagination to understand how a list of invitees and the final guest list for an event that was widely promoted by the Governors office would fall within the scope of §87(2)(g), because the records at issue are unrelated to a deliberative process.

Finally, as these documents both merely are a listing of names, they are literally the definition of "factual tabulations" and therefore not exempt from release. See Mulgrew v. Board of Educ. of City School Dist. of City of New York, 31 Misc.3d 296, 919 N.Y.S.2d 786 (Sup. Ct. 2011) for a similar precedent which held that the names of teachers included in Teacher Data Reports do not fall under the exception since such names are “statistical or factual tabulations of data.”

Thank you for your time and attention to this appeal. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Russel Neiss