DuPage Co., IL. (ECWd) –
On July 11, 2014, Kirk Allen requested copies, from the College of DuPage, of membership documents related to Max McGraws Wildlife Foundation for the previous five years.
On August 4, 2014, Allen filed a Request for Review with the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor’s Office.
Public funds were used to purchase the memberships, and the college had not provided the requested public records.
From this determination:
“The College stated that Ms. Mosher compiled 29 pages of responsive records based on her search, which were then passed to additional personnel for review. The College stated that it eventually furnished Mr. Allen with 15 pages of records. The College asserted that ” Ms. Mitchell does not believe she was the one who culled the number of documents down from 29 to 15″ and that “[ t]ypically, such decisions would be made by the department( s) where the potentially responsive documents were located” with additional determinations potentially made by the College’ s outside counsel or the President’ s Office. 7 The College further asserted: ” At this time, the College takes no position regarding the identity of the person( s) who made the decision( s) to withhold any or all of 14 documents.”” – (SEE our 2016 article exposing the then-College President for allegedly removing public records he did not want us to see, prior to handing them to their attorney for review)
“The College also stated that although the President’s Office initially advised Ms. Mitchell that it did not possess any responsive membership documents, litigation filed by the Chicago Tribune led to the discovery that the President’ s Office did, in fact, have Max McGraw membership documents. Such membership documents were subsequently produced to the Chicago Tribune and Mr. Allen in the summer of 2015.”
“Based on this office’s review of the information submitted by both parties, the College did not demonstrate that it fully responded to Mr. Allen’ s request. In addition, this office’s confidential review of those pages did not\ reveal any basis for withholding those records in their entireties. Indeed, two of those records directly related to the payment of membership dues by the College.”
“This office requests that the College disclose to Mr. Allen the remaining 14 pages of records related to Foundation expenses and payments.”
We are currently awaiting the production of the remaining responsive records to the 2014 FOIA request.
Why it took 5 years-10.5 months for the AG to close out a simple FOIA request for review is beyond our comprehension.
COD 30665 f 3d response incomplete univ_Redacted.
Our work is funded entirely thru donations and we
ask that you consider donating at the below link.
