The Park District of La Grange should make public all documents and personal information submitted by five individuals seeking appointment to fill a vacancy on its board of commissioners, according to a March 5 ruling by Illinois Attorney General's Office of the Public Access Counselor (PAC).
"When [a] public office becomes vacant, it follows that the public has a legitimate interest in knowing who has applied for the position so that they may evaluate whether the individuals are qualified to represent a particular[district] and discern why one applicant was appointed over others," the ruling said. "Moreover, [t]he public has a legitimate interest in evaluating whether these applicants have met [the] residency requirement before the vacancy is filled."
While the ruling did not speak directly to the Park District's apparent efforts to cloak its appointment process in secrecy, but rather a similar situation in the City of Chicago, the circumstances and legal issues in the two cases are strikingly similar.
In the Chicago instance, the city's attorneys sought to deny entirely a reporter's request under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain the names, addresses and other information contained in applications submitted by more than 90 individuals seeking appointment by Mayor Richard M. Daley to two vacant ward seats on the city council.
In the case of the Park District, its officials responded to an identical FOIA request submitted March 3 by La Grange Today publisher Thom Rae by providing only the names of five individuals who applied for consideration by the park board to fill the vacancy created by Commissioner Rob Metzger, who resigned due to time constraints involving job and family.
But park officials refused to provide the applicants' home addresses or any documents provided in support of their application.
Chicago's attorneys argued that an exemption provided in the FOIA statute, Subsection 7(1)(c), supported its denial of the request filed by Alex Parker, a reporter with Chicago Current, a website devoted to covering the city's political scene.
Subsection 7(1)(c) exempts from disclosure:
Personal information contained within public records, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, unless the disclosure is consented to in writing by the individual subjects of the information. "Unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" means the disclosure of information that is highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and in which the subject's right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information. The disclosure of information that bears on the public duties of public employees and officials shall not be considered an invasion of personal privacy.
Park officials cited a different exemption from the statute—Subsection 7(1)(b)—as the basis for their withholding the addresses of the five applicants. It exempts:
Private information, unless disclosure is required by another provision of this Act, a State or federal law or a court order.
It would be speculation to suggest that park officials deemed the addresses to be "private" versus "personal" information in an attempt to avoid having to meet the standards imposed in 7(1)(c), on which the PAC appears to have based its ruling in the Chicago case.
"[T]he City has failed to establish either that disclosure of the information in these job application packets would be highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person or that the applicants' right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining information about the people seeking appointment to this public office," the PAC's ruling said.
By citing FOIA exemption 7(1)(b) instead of (c), the Park District also sidestepped a requirement specific to the latter exemption. Any public body citing "personal information" as the reason for denying a FOIA request must notify the PAC in writing of its intent. The PAC's denial in the Chicago case was made in response to the city's notice of intent to deny using 7(1)(c).
In any case, the park officials' argument that the applicants' home addresses are "private information" appears shaky when one considers that addresses for all five applicants were easily found within a single online telephone directory.
However, the fact that information requested of a public body may be obtained elsewhere does not offset the body's obligations under the FOIA to provide the same.
In denying release of any documents provided to the Park District by the five board applicants, its attorneys relied on legal arguments reminiscent of the Clinton White House, quibbling over the exact meaning of the word "application."
Because the Park District did not require applicants to fill out a standard form, (Chicago, by comparison, did provide a form), it could not provide copies of the applications because no standard form was used, Jeffrey Jurgens, an attorney with law firm Ancel Glink, which represents the Park District on general matters, including FOIA responses, told Rae.
When Rae pointed out that at least one applicant, Jim Boo, had publicly disclosed a letter he submitted to park officials as his application, Jurgens said that any such documents were not viewed by the Park District as applications because they did not employ the non-existent form that was not provided.
Jurgens said that Rae could file a new FOIA request describing documents such as the one submitted by Boo using words other than "application." Under protest, Rae filed a revised FOIA request last Friday. A new FOIA request gives the Park District an additional five business days to respond.
Rae said the PAC's March 5 ruling came to his attention this afternoon during a conversation with Terry Pastika, an attorney and executive director at the Citizen Advocacy Center in Elmhurst, a non-profit organization that promotes open government.
A subsequent phone call to the PAC office in Springfield was too late in the business day to accommodate a request for a copy of the document.
Chicago Current reporter Parker, reached by phone this evening, provided a copy of the ruling via email.
Parker said that, in the Chicago case, the Daley administration late last Friday released a list of nearly 60 applicants, having removed those names who were ruled ineligible or whom had subsequently withdrawn from consideration. While each applicant's name was associated with one of the two respective vacant ward seats, no home addresses were provided. The city later provided copies of the applicant forms and related documents with the homes addresses redacted, Parker said.
Rae said he will forward a copy of the ruling to Park District officials in hopes of resolving the conflict over his FOIA request without direct intervention of the PAC. But if that fails, Rae said he will file a formal request for assistance.
Read the entire ruling from the Illinois Attorney General's Office of the Public Access Counselor.
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