NYC health-NYPD

Dear Mr. Guariglia:

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has denied your Freedom of Information Law (NYC Public Officers Law Article 6, "FOIL") request because it does not reasonably describe the records sought as required by FOIL § 89(3)(a). A request reasonably describes records when it provides the agency sufficient ability, with reasonable effort, to launch an effective search to locate and identify records sought. Your request would require the collection and review of almost all documents created by multiple programs throughout the agency going back as far as our records allow since you did not provide a timeframe for the request. As noted by the NYS Committee on Open Government:
[U]ntil and unless the Law is amended to focus on the reality that the high volume of material that can be located with reasonable effort through electronic means, it is our opinion that it is unreasonable to require an agency to review thousands of records that may contain a particular search term or terms in response to a Freedom of Information Law request. As is the case here, it would be an unreasonable burden, in our view, to require an agency to review perhaps thousands of individual records in order to identify those portions of such records that are required to be made available.
COOG FOIL Advisory Opinion 18949 (8/20/12).

You may file a written appeal of this denial within 30 days of the date of this message. The appeal should be addressed to:
Thomas Merrill, Esquire
Appeals Officer & General Counsel
42-09 28th Street, CN-30
Long Island City, NY 11101
The notice of appeal should include the request control number, the date of this denial message, a description of the records that were the subject of the request, the specific legal grounds for your appeal, and the full name and address of the original requester. In the alternative, you may resubmit a request with reasonable parameters to allow for a search to be conducted for specific items within a specific timeframe.

Thank you,
Chari Anhouse
Associate General Counsel/Records Access Officer
NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene
General Counsel's Office
42-09 28th Street, CN-31
Long Island City, NY 11101
347-396-6419

P

Please consider the environment before printing this email.