update: broken links fixed to interview, thanks John Balogh for the heads up

as sent by postal mail and email

March 14, 2009

Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority
150 South Fifth Avenue
Suite 301
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

RECORDS REQUEST

Dear Records Request Officer:

Pursuant to the state open records act, I request access to and copies of the continuously updated information about the current availability of parking structure occupancy and free spaces, as currently provided to the general public on the web page

http://www.a2dda.org/parking__transportation/available_parking_spots/

For your reference, this system is described in this interview

http://www.homelessdave.com/tt20080411stephensmith.htm

conducted by Mr. David Askins of the Ann Arbor Chronicle, in which a representative of a contractor for the DDA says:

"SS: Oh, okay! Yeah, no, I haven't had a lot of time to pay attention to our statistics yet, but I will at the end of this month. It just rolled out April 1st. Our area associations, I imagine, are going to want to embed this--and we encourage them to--in their own webpages. For instance, Main Street Area Association, and State Street Area Association. There are a lot of them, these associations and other organizations, who could really benefit from it, especially if you're going to have an event, you're telling your attendees to come downtown. "

Despite these assurances, our current requests are met with this error message:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /parking__transportation/available_parking_spots/
on this server.

Apache/2.2.4 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.4 OpenSSL/0.9.7a DAV/2 mod_jk/1.2.20 PHP/5.2.1 Server at a2dda.org Port 80

I am willing to pay up to a maximum of $20 in fees associated with the fulfillment of this request.

As the release of this data is in the public interest - indeed, is within the primary goal and charter of the DDA - I ask that these fees be waived.

If my request is denied in whole or part, I ask that you justify all deletions by reference to specific exemptions of the act.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Edward Vielmetti