Name: City of Detroit wanted $222,000 for public records. So Free Press sued.
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City of Detroit wanted $222,000 for public records. So Free Press sued.

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Detroit Free Press The Detroit Free Press is suing the city of Detroit for access to all of the&nbsp;public records connected to&nbsp;a city watchdog's investigation that &nbsp;Mayor Mike Duggan gave preferential treatment to a prenatal health program run by a woman with close ties to him.The Free Press attempted to obtain the records through a Freedom of Information Act request filed in August 2019. The city eventually&nbsp;granted a portion of the FOIA request, but only if the Free Press paid $222,667 and waited an estimated three years for legal&nbsp;staff to review the documents, which the city said&nbsp;totaled about 400,000 pages.By charging such substantial, the&nbsp;Free Press' attorney argued that the&nbsp;city effectively denied the FOIA request in violation of the state's public records law, adding that&nbsp;the fees and wait time are "clearly intended to chill the public's right of access to public records.""We call that a constructive denial,"&nbsp;Free Press lawyer Herschel Fink said in a statement Wednesday.The Free Press’ FOIA request sought the records collected during the Detroit Office of Inspector General’s investigation into Duggan’s selection of the Make Your Date organization as a partner in the city’s fight against infant mortality.&nbsp;Last fall,&nbsp;after the city granted the request by requiring the six-figure payout and years-long wait,&nbsp;the newspaper appealed the fee issue administratively, but lost, leading to Free Press to&nbsp;take the issue to court.&nbsp;On Tuesday, the city of Detroit responded to the newspaper's lawsuit filed in Wayne County Circuit Court in April. The city denied several allegations raised in the Free Press’ lawsuit and declared it had met all legal obligations in responding to the FOIA request. The city’s top government lawyer, Corporation Counsel Lawrence Garcia, called the Free Press’ lawsuit “ridiculous.”Garcia argued that the city had&nbsp;already given the newspaper&nbsp;witness interview tapes, transcripts and reports from the inspector general's investigation. (The newspaper was charged $273.) Conducting a legal review of&nbsp; the rest of the related documents&nbsp;would be more much labor-intensive, he said.“It reflects contempt for the FOIA statute more than any legitimate grievance with the city’s handling of a request for records,” Garcia said in an email Wednesday. “The only problem is that the Free Press does not want to follow the FOIA and pay the statutory costs for city attorneys to review 400,000 pages of records and redact any exempted materials (e.g. privileged communications, internal policy, information that would invade privacy and other recognized categories of exemption)."He continued: "What is even sillier is that the Free Press has waited nine months to sue for a free copy of the records, but they claim to resent the city’s estimate of several years to complete the more than 5,000 hours of work necessary to produce 400,000 pages. The city is bound to follow all the laws, including the ones that news organizations may find inconvenient.”Peter Bhatia, editor and vice president of the&nbsp;Free Press, has said fighting for openness and freedom of information is central to the&nbsp;newspaper's mission to deliver important, well-reported journalism."Filing a suit is not something we do lightly,” Bhatia said in a statement. “In this case, the ridiculous charges the city wishes to impose and the public interest in fully understanding all that occurred in the IG's investigation led us to do so."Read more:&nbsp;More:&nbsp;The Free Press lawsuit seeks a third-party forensic analysis and collection of the sought-after public records to be paid for by the city;&nbsp;attorney’s fees and monetary damages awarded to the Free Press for the city’s violation of FOIA; a reduction in the charge&nbsp;for the records from $222,667 to zero, and&nbsp;a court-imposed&nbsp;civil fine on the city.The Free Press’ case against the city was filed in the wake of&nbsp;the destruction of government emails about Make Your Date.&nbsp;Duggan's chief of staff, Alexis Wiley, ordered city staff to delete their emails related to Make Your Date as the mayor’s ties came under scrutiny by the Free Press and others, according to the inspector general's report.&nbsp;Inspector General Ellen Ha recommended Wiley be disciplined&nbsp;in her report, but Duggan declined, ordering public-records training for her instead."As I've said from the very beginning, I strongly dispute the findings of the OIG report and that has not changed," Wiley said in a statement on Thursday.&nbsp;&nbsp;The episode is now part of a state criminal investigation led by the office of&nbsp;Attorney General Dana Nessel.As part of the investigation, Nessel’s office in November on the city of Detroit, seeking voluminous records from email accounts for Duggan, Wiley and other city officials. A spokeswoman for Nessel said Wednesday the investigation is ongoing.Joe&nbsp;Guillen&nbsp;has been covering city governance and development issues for the newspaper since 2013.&nbsp;He has covered Detroit city hall, been a member of the investigations team and previously worked at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer covering county and state government.&nbsp;Contact him at&nbsp;313-222-6678&nbsp;or jguillen@freepress.com.

Detroit Free Press The Detroit Free Press is suing the city of Detroit for access to all of the&nbsp;public records connected to&nbsp;a city watchdog's investigation that &nbsp;Mayor Mike Duggan gave preferential treatment to a prenatal health program run by a woman with close ties to him.The Free Press attempted to obtain the records through a Freedom of Information Act request filed in August 2019. The city eventually&nbsp;granted a portion of the FOIA request, but only if the Free Press paid $222,667 and waited an estimated three years for legal&nbsp;staff to review the documents, which...

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Joe Guillen

The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primarily serves Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties.  The Free Press is also the largest city newspaper owned by Gannett, which also publishes USA Today. The Free Press has received ten Pulitzer Prizes and four Emmy Awards. Its motto is "On Guard for 189 Years".

City of Detroit wanted $222,000 for public records. So Free Press sued.

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