Just four days after being hit with an Open Meetings Act lawsuit, the City of Urbana is now facing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. The complaint, which was filed with the Champaign County Sixth Judicial Circuit court of Illinois on November 24th, alleges that the City of Urbana “in bad faith, willfully and intentionally violated the FOIA” by refusing to provide records related to fees levied against civilians who sought public records.
John Kraft of Illinois Leaks (also known as the Edgar County Watchdogs) sent his FOIA request to the City of Urbana after he heard about the City’s newly adopted fee schedule for public records. Urbana’s new fees resulted in thousands of dollars of unlawful charges upon residents of Urbana, and anyone who could not afford the fees had their records requests denied. Kraft wanted to see the accounting for the fees and who was being made to pay them.
Kraft sent his records request on October 27th, 2020 but Urbana’s FOIA Officer, Curt Borman, claimed the identities of individuals who paid fees was “private information”, and he denied the request on October 30th. Just ten minutes after Borman issued his denial, Kraft wrote back:
“Mr. Borman
Article VIII, Section 1(c) of the Illinois Constitution, Article 3(a) of the Local Records Act, and Section 2.5 of the Freedom of Information Act override Section 7(1)(b) of the FOIA – so please provide the names associated with the dollar amounts paid.
Thanks,
John Kraft”
Borman ignored this communication and Kraft wrote again a week later, but Borman indicated that he would not take any further action on Kraft’s request.
Backstory on Urbana’s New FOIA Fees
In the past, Urbana rarely sought fees for public records requests. However, everything changed after Mayor Marlin assigned a new FOIA Officer on June 8th this year. Just one week after thousands of people marched in front of the Urbana City Building demanding more police accountability, Marlin appointed retired police officer, Curt Borman, to handle all public records requests.
Borman immediately began charging bloated fees for police records, and he charged higher fees to anyone who would not mail the City a scanned copy of a government ID. He also decided that he would no longer email public records, as the City had been doing for years.
Borman, along with Assistant City Clerk Lizabeth Kay Meharry, started charging for USB flash drives and they demanded that requesters pay for postage or provide a paid return envelope. They assessed “voluminous request” fees on records as small as one page. A single-page records request would be charged $20 for the data and $7.97 for the flash drive, plus postage.
On June 16th, an Urbana resident was charged $730.63 for police body camera video from a single incident, $20 for some emails, and $27.97 for a copy of the Urbana Police Department Policies. On June 23rd, another Urbana resident was charged $702.66 for Urbana Police dash-cam video from the arrest of Quintin Brown and Wayne Colson (who sat in Champaign County jail for a year before the State’s Attorney, Julia Rietz, determined there was no evidence to charge them).
In a period of two or three months, Borman charged thousands of dollars of illegal FOIA fees, despite complaints from Urbana residents. He finally altered his tactics (article here) after the Illinois Attorney General issued several letters to the City of Urbana indicating that their fees violated the FOIA statute (articles here, here, and here). However, Borman and Meharry still continue to demand government ID and creatively apply “voluminous request” fees to some requesters.
A copy of the complaint, including exhibits showing emails between Kraft and Borman, can be seen here (click for full 13 page PDF):
-Christopher Hansen, Urbana