FOIA Coordinator by Edward Vielmetti

Ask for meeting minutes: the Ann Arbor Downtown Area Citizens Advisory Council

The City of Ann Arbor has 101 listed boards and commissions, according to the city's Legistar service. (There are a number of them that are inactive.) This is an indication that there's some kind of public process by which decisions are made and where citizens can give their input.

One of the listed groups is the Downtown Area Citizens Advisory Council, which should be a citizen's group providing public input into the Downtown Development Authority's planning and development efforts. Of late that group has been dominated by its chair, who has been on the board since its inception in the 1980s.

A citizens advisory group has no power, in that it only reports in an advisory role and doesn't actually make any decisions. Unlike other parts of civic government, it does have a set voice at the table at every DDA meeting, and the chair has been outspoken about many civic issues.

You'd expect that this gorup would keep meeting minutes like every single other city board and commission. Alas, the quality of the latest set of meeting minutes I looked at was substandard ; it didn't list who was at the meeting, when it met, what was discussed by members of the group, or any record of public participation. The question has to come up: if there aren't good meeting minutes, is this board being run properly? In particular, is the chair claiming a broad consensus of public opinion for issues that have not been discussed publicly?

I've asked the city clerk for meeting minutes for the past year and a half so that I can see for myself what is going on.

More reading:    

a2politico on expired terms of board members of the CAC.

Ann Arbor Chronicle on a meeting where the expired terms came to an issue in public commentary; follow the comments.

Searching for meeting minutes: Ann Arbor Building Board of Appeals 2010-2012

City of Ann Arbor: The Building Board of Appeals hears appeals of cases where the city has found poor repairs or construction of buildings; they haven't published their meeting minutes since 2010. A FOIA request has been filed by the editor to see what decisions have been made and what's been on the agendas. 

Feces and FOIA

Dog feces, that is.

From "South Poop", a Chicago South Loop blog:

Courtesy of Dana Weems, a writer for ChicagoTalks.org, South Poop has received a copy of a City of Chicago FOIA request that lists the citations for the last three years under the City’s Removal of Excrement ordinance 7-12-420.

From AnnArbor.com, on a story regarding dog excrement at Slauson Middle School:

Who is actually responsible for the poop being left in the field? Are the offenses occurring during the hour a week unleashed dogs roam free or in the 167 hours in which they don’t?

I don’t know. Feces are not subject to FOIA. But the fact of the matter is, when “it” happens,unlike Forrest Gump, people are going to take steps to avoid it.

At least in Chicago, feces are subject to FOIA.

 

Always appeal your FOIA rejections

From AnnArbor.com, December 2, 2011 -

Ann Arbor officials have denied AnnArbor.com's request for a draft copy of a new report on fire department staffing levels.

Getting your FOIA request rejected is the first step, not the last step, in the process of determining what is going on. Always appeal your rejections - there is always a reasonable second opinion to be had, and in Michigan it comes free of charge and without the need for a lawsuit. For every rejection, there is a counter-argument, and if you are in a competent news organization there is always some angle to the story that can be followed up with an appeal out of the clerical bureaucracy and into the leadership level.

From the Ann Arbor Chronicle, December 21, 2011: Column: FOIA Hazards, Christmas Gifts Yelling FOIA in a democratic theater generates backdraft, by Dave Askins.

During the extension, I approached (city administrator Steve) Powers, essentially outside the formal mechanism of the FOIA process. My pitch to Powers was not a legal argument. My pitch was based on the organizational interests of the city and the public interest of the community. We met on Friday, Dec. 16.

In that meeting, Powers assured me the draft report, the final report (which is still watermarked “draft”) and the maps would be released the following week. And the records were, in fact, released. We withdrew our FOIA request when we got the information we requested.

Indeed, the fire report has been released. It recommends a bunch of changes to the way the city staffs its fire department, and notably to me at least a recommendation that the city use mini fire trucks equipped with foam-based fire fighting tools to respond rapidly to fires with smaller crews needed to work the equipment. It's a big report, and the city is still digesting it - it's also a report that cost more than $30,000, and that the city paid for in July but didn't release until the end of the year.

FOIA Friday: Street and sidewalk maintenance

This request template is suitable for requesting information about street and sidewalk maintenance. It should be preceded by a written request for street or sidewalk maintenance or repair, if that is the issue you are pursuing. Replace the address in question with your own.

FOIA

Please provide the following records in electronic format.

I believe that all records requested will be available without redaction and in electronic format. If there are any costs associated with this request that exceed $1.00, please inform me before proceeding.

1. Permits issued since (date in recent past) for work in the right of way on the NNN block of Z Avenue, (excluding/including) those permits for work on (sidewalks/streets).

2. Work orders for work done by municipal employees or contractors in the right of way on the NNN block of Z Avenue, including work done on the water distribution system and work done by Street Maintenance Services.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this request.

The respond that I received included not only the record of the work done to repair a pothole, but also a nice summary set of records showing sanitary sewer work dating all the way back to the 1960s - an unexpected find.

If you need to dig deeper into a sidewalk issue, the City of Ann Arbor FOIA 09-228 it available on a2docs.org, the Ann Arbor Area Government Document Repository. It shows some of what additional information you can get if you want to really dig into inspection records. This particular issue has been resolved, but here's what the sidewalk looked like before the FOIA was sent in.

Edward Vielmetti fixes potholes and repairs sidewalks, in a matter of speaking. He maintains the FOIA Coordinator weblog. Contact him at edward.vielmetti@gmail.com .