FOI requests: Exercising rights or clogging government?
Shannon Burns concedes she has plenty of spare time to file demand after demand for information from the DuPage County Forest Preserve District.
A defeated forest preserve board candidate in the last election, Burns is on a quest for government transparency in DuPage County, especially when it affects her Warrenville backyard.
Because of a change enacted last year to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, governments must respond more quickly and thoroughly to citizen requests for public documents.
But some government leaders say partly because of the law and partly because of single-issue activists like Burns, they're getting clogged with requests. Answering them used to take the forest district a few hours a week; now it's almost a full-time job that costs the district $60,000 a year in payroll hours, supply costs and legal fees.
“I'm a big advocate of transparency of government,” said Brent Manning, forest preserve executive director. “But I am also concerned when it starts costing us a significant amount of money.”
The firestorm was set off by plans for a mammoth fleet garage and maintenance facility in Blackwell Forest Preserve near Warrenville, upsetting neighbors like Burns.
Before the Blackwell debate, FOIA requests averaged about 40 annually. But in 2009, the district received 187 requests. Last year as the conflict continued, 167 FOIAs were filed.
While Burns admits she filed many FOIA requests on Blackwell, she says she and fellow neighbors are not looking to clog local government to forward their agenda.
There are good reasons for their actions.
The district drags its feet in posting public information online, she said, such as meeting minutes that don't appear until nearly a year later. And that forces requests for routine public information.
She also contends general information, such as ordinances, should be routinely posted.
“It's absurd those aren't online,” Burns said. “They might say it takes staff time to scan them all in and post them. And that makes sense because it's a huge job. But get a volunteer to help.”
Helping or hurting?
The reason behind the FOIA changes enacted last year are simple: make Illinois government more accessible to average citizens.
Changes strengthen the act with requirements like penalties for failing to release public records, limiting document copy fees and making e-mails and texts subject to the act.
After these changes, Lisle officials saw requests jump by from 456 to 555 from 2009 to 2010. But Mayor Joe Broda said the primary culprit was plans for Navistar Inc., a maker of commercial and military vehicles, to relocate its world headquarters to Lisle.
Residents voiced strong concerns about noise and air pollution that might come from a planned engine testing facility. Of the 99 additional FOIA requests Lisle received last year, nearly all pertained to Navistar and about 50 were from the same two residents.
“The difference last year was that many (requests) asked for many, many, many documents, and our responses could go up to 200 pages,” said Kristine Curran, Lisle's chief FOIA officer. “Many were heavily detailed, and the new rule requiring a response in five days, rather than seven, made it more difficult.”
Ultimately, Navistar officials agreed to eliminate the engine-testing facility, clearing the path for its move to the former Alcatel-Lucent building on Warrenville Road.
But Broda said some groups made extraneous requests, such as a copy of his calendar for an entire year that required him to spend hours redacting personal appointments.
The forest preserve received similar requests from Blackwell opponents that left officials scratching their heads, including the names of about 35,000 subscribers to the district's magazine, The Conservationist. The district put a note about the request in a recent issue, and a handful of subscribers complained or canceled their subscriptions because they did not want their names and addresses made public, officials said.
Broda added that some parties even abuse the system, making requests and then neglecting the documents.
“When you have some people who make these requests and don't even pick their stuff up, that's where I use the word ‘harassment,'” he said.
No easy answer
But the abuse works in reverse, too, said Terry Pastika, director of the Elmhurst-based Citizen Advocacy Center. She has seen instances where residents need only a few documents, but governments bury the key information in hundreds of pages.
One solution, she said, is simply picking up the phone. Her organization recently called workers at DuPage County to explain information they thought might warrant a FOIA request. But Pastika said the county made the document easily available and avoided the formality.
Burns also said she's had similar success avoiding FOIAs by directly communicating with governments, such as the city of Warrenville.
That's OK to a point, Pastika said.
“But that requires trust that the government is going to be responsive,” she said. “(Groups) that tend to heavily use FOIA do so because certain government bodies are nonresponsive to citizen concerns and questions. So, often, they have no choice to make extensive requests.”
Another option is to use the Internet proactively. Both Lisle and the forest preserve have information request forms available online, but of the two only Lisle allows electronic submissions.
Meanwhile Aurora, which saw FOIA requests rise about 25 percent in the past two years partly due to foreclosure inquiries, took it a step further and tied requests to the city's customer service call center that logs responses.
Spokesman Kevin Stahr said Aurora isn't getting overwhelmed, but city officials still worry about the time and money it takes to fulfill requests under the updated law.
Manning echoes this, saying revisions might be needed to the state law. He fears it might do more than scare off magazine subscribers and discourage gestures like anonymous donations, too, since the new law makes it harder to keep this information private.
But Pastika said the new law must stay — especially when some leaders create “backlash polices” when they are inundated with requests, she said. Lisle, for instance, now requires requesters to pay in advance for documents.
“Rather than the government entity responding with how to open the process and open community dialogue, the response tends to be to further restrict access,” she said.
Freedom of Information Act request increases
<b>Lisle</b>
2009: 456 requests
2010: 555 requests
Increase = roughly 21 percent
<b>DuPage County Forest Preserve</b>
2000 to 2008: 45 requests (average)
2009 and 2010: 177 requests (average)
Increase = almost 300 percent