Chronicle Article About FOI Demand

[Chris Komuves]

Does anyone have a copy of the article that was in the Chronicle a couple days ago about Bill Jenkins Freedom of Information request for the private email addresses of everyone on the Town Newsletter list?  I’d really like to see what’s been written about that.

Chris

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Christopher S. Komuves  <c...@kom.com>

     http://chris.komuves.org

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[Kitty LeShay]

The library gets the Chronicle

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From: Chris Komuves <csko...@gmail.com>
To: chapli...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 12:47 PM
Subject: [Chaplin Town Forum] Chronicle Article About FOI Demand

Does anyone have a copy of the article that was in the Chronicle a couple days ago about Bill Jenkins Freedom of Information request for the private email addresses of everyone on the Town Newsletter list?  I’d really like to see what’s been written about that.

Chris

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Christopher S. Komuves  <c...@kom.com>

     http://chris.kom.com/g

====================================

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[Jennifer Roberts]

Can anyone scan it? Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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From: Kitty LeShay <kitt...@yahoo.com>;
To: chapli...@googlegroups.com <chapli...@googlegroups.com>;
Subject: Re: [Chaplin Town Forum] Chronicle Article About FOI Demand
Sent: Fri, Nov 22, 2013 5:56:25 PM

[071...@gmail.com]

The email addresses are not private, they are public per state law.  Failing to disclose public information as ordered by the FOI Commission is a criminal offense, a Class B misdemeanor, CGS 1-240(b).

 

Never mind what was written in the newspaper, here are the minutes from the FOI Commission meeting:

 

http://www.ct.gov/foi/cwp/view.asp?a=4282&Q=535274

 

On November 27th, the town filed a motion of Reconsideration and Stay of the Final Decison that was heard at the FOI Commission meeting on December 18th and is was unanimously denied by the FOI Commission here:

 

http://www.ct.gov/foi/cwp/view.asp?a=4282&Q=537080

 

Now the town has either 45 days to comply with the order or appeal to Superior Court thus costing the town more money in legal fees.  If neither of these are done within 45 days, some will be arrested for violation of an FOI order per CGS 1-240(b).

 

Does anyone have a digital recording of the FOI Commission meeting of December 18th?  The minutes don't say much regarding the unanimous denial of the town's motion, it might be interesting to hear what the discussion was on that motion.

[Chris Komuves]

So, I approved this message for posting, though I usually do not for anyone who tries to post anonymously.  Who are you? (I have a suspicion, btw.)

It’s hard to believe you would have actually read the statute you referenced and be able to state that with a straight face.  The statute reads, "Any member of any public agency who fails to comply with an order of the Freedom of Information Commission shall be guilty of a class B misdemeanor and each occurrence of failure to comply with such order shall constitute a separate offense."

The problem with that is that I am NOT a member of any public agency (and yes, I checked the definition of that in the statutes just to be certain), so even if the FOI commission were to take the (potentially illegal because it’s out of their scope) step of trying to order me to disclose privately held information, it would not be enforceable, as I would not be breaking any law by ignoring it.  It’s a Google group that I’m the owner of (just like this one), where everyone who signed up was promised that their email addresses would never be disclosed to anyone else.  No member of any public agency has access to the actual list of private email addresses. I am ethically bound to uphold that agreement, which is what I intend to do.

I too am very curious as to what happened at the Dec. 18th hearing.  I’ve not yet heard anything about it.

Chris