Jeff Walik emails

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act., I hereby request the following records:

Any and all emails sent to, from or cc’d Jeff Walik, between the dates of October 1, 2023, and the date that this request is ultimately fulfilled, containing any of the following non-case-sensitive keywords in the body or subject line of the emails or within an attachment of the emails:
- "koppers"
- "pollution"
- "violation"
- "independiente"
- "muckrock"

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,

Dillon Bergin

Hi Audrey,

Pursuant to the relevant statute — ILCS 140/3 (g) — before invoking a denial of a request that is deemed "unduly burdensome," the agency must first give the requester an opportunity to narrow the request or, in the denial of the request, explain how the request will burden the agency's operation.

See: "Before invoking this exemption, the public body shall extend to the person making the request an opportunity to confer with it in an attempt to reduce the request to manageable proportions. If any public body responds to a categorical request by stating that compliance would unduly burden its operation and the conditions described above are met, it shall do so in writing, specifying the reasons why it would be unduly burdensome and the extent to which compliance will so burden the operations of the public body."

With the denial of my request, can you explain how this request is unduly burdensome? More specifically, what number of records must be searched and how long would a response with those records take to produce?

Best,
Dillon

Hi Audrey,

I just wanted to be clear that, as you said in our phone conversation this morning, that the Village of Stickney will not demonstrate why compliance with the request would constitute an undue burden (either in the amount of records or cost of labor), beyond the statement in your written response that it would "an additional strain on the Village’s resources."

Best,
Dillon Bergin