Milton Township, Ill. (ECWd) –
Milton Township is under criminal investigations as is evidenced by the township’s response denying parts of our Freedom of Information Act requests. The DuPage County State’s Attorney is currently investigating, along with the Illinois Secretary of State and the Secretary of State Police.
The Secretary of State’s office provided the following comment: “The Illinois Secretary of State’s office is aware of the situation and its Department of Police is actively investigating the matter in conjunction with the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office.”
We requested the following, among other things, which the township (wrongly) denied claiming the requested record(s) contain information relative to an ongoing criminal investigation is exempt from disclosure, 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(d)(vii):
- Copies of any subpoenas, etc. in the past 90 days
- Copy of all “tickets” or “citations” or “letters” indicating alleged or actual traffic or ordinance “violations” or infractions issued by the DDSP (Contractor) to drivers or vehicle owners, copy of all payments made to the contractor, and copy all payments made from contractor to the township
The Section (5 ILCS 140/7(1)(d)(vii)) of FOIA Milton Township relied on to deny these public records only applies to public entities/agencies which can conduct criminal investigations; townships cannot “conduct criminal investigations”:
- (vii) obstruct an ongoing criminal investigation by the agency that is the recipient of the request
These FOIA requests by us, and now the ongoing criminal investigations, are to figure out what was going on with the township’s “contract” with the Distracted Driver Safety Program (“DDSP”) which was purportedly conducting traffic enforcement operations on behalf of the township, and to the financial benefit of the DDSP and township.
A full review of this contract will be published in a future article.
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