This letter from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office may not appear terribly interesting at first glance. So the City of Urbana didn’t try hard enough on their records search, so what? This might be one of those situations that is too complicated to explain in a meaningful way, but I’ll try.
The actions of City staff on this one are far more pernicious than it may first appear. This appeal to the Public Access Counselor (PAC 62770) comes after three different FOIA requests over a period of 18 months, all seeking essentially the same documents.
The documents I desired were in regards to an informal complaint (a simple email) I sent to the City about safety problems at the Landscape Recycling Center (LRC). After submitting that complaint, staff at the LRC started charging me double what they had been, and I received some harassing comments on social media from friends/family of an LRC employee. I revealed the overcharging/retaliation and Human Resources Director Todd Rent, Assistant City Attorney Michelle Brooks, and Arbor Division Manager Bruce Cubberly all blew me off. This was all very sad to me because the Urbana Landscape Recycling Center was always one of my favorite resources.
I sought to understand why the City of Urbana would want to be so dismissive about discrimination complaints, so I sent FOIA requests. It should be noted that the person who definitely should have taken interest in this type of retaliation by City employees, Human Rights Officer Vacellia Clark, has never been responsive to my attempts to contact her about such issues. So, I was on my own, as most civilians are when their government becomes abusive.
The first request (numbered 2018-670) was submitted on December 30th 2018, and Human Resources Director Todd Rent denied a large portion of the documents, claiming that they were exempt on the basis that they were “deliberative” in nature. What Rent was actually doing was denying records which expose likely employee misconduct, as well as his own misconduct.
I knew Todd Rent was playing games with exemptions so I tried again on October 25th, 2019 (numbered 2019-598). Again, the fabulously corrupt Todd Rent snubbed my request. I appealed that denial to the PAC (PAC 60567).
That appeal was taking forever and Todd Rent left Urbana right around that time. I tried requesting documents from another angle on April 2nd, 2020 (numbered 2020-187) and I also FOIA’d my previous FOIA request on the matter. City Clerk Charlie Smyth gave me the middle finger on that request, which I also appealed (PAC 62770).
Deputy Public Access Counselor Leah Bartelt determined that the City of Urbana had not improperly withheld documents on the 2019-598 request, but did indicate that the City needed to actually perform a search for the 2020-187 request.
Finally, on August 10th, 2020 Curt Borman sent me additional records. The search that the PAC told Borman to perform revealed that Todd Rent had clearly been improperly withholding records from the previous requests. So, the July 30th determination by Leah Bartelt which said “the City of Urbana did not improperly withhold records” was shown to be wrong (but Bartelt did not know it at the time).
The supplementary document that Borman sent to me on August 10th was actually an email written by Todd Rent. There is no question that Rent knew that the document should have been delivered with my previous requests, but Rent is corrupt and the City of Urbana allows corrupt employees to handle and deny FOIA requests on their own emails.
Even 18+ months later, this issue is far from settled. It is still clear to me that additional records are being withheld. I actually did run into Todd Rent at the City Building in late 2019 and raised the issue with him again at that time. He chuckled nervously when I reminded him that he completely ignored my complaint about abusive pricing at the LRC. I then forwarded him my series of emails from 2018 and Todd Rent ignored them all over again.
Perhaps after a full staff turnover in 10-20 years time, the City of Urbana will actually comply with my FOIA requests on this matter. In the meantime, I bought my own wood chipper so that I can avoid abuse from the Landscape Recycling Center people.
-Christopher Hansen, Urbana
The following documents support the claims I’ve made above:
Urbana FOIA Appeal on 2020-F-187 (PAC 62770) Determination of Violation