Response to FOIA denial on May 15, 2009

Following is a scanned copy and the original text of my response below, which was hand-delivered to the offices of J. Daniel McGrath:

Page 1 of response to FOIA denial by the Village Lawyer, J. Daniel McGrath

Page 2 of response to FOIA denial by the Village Lawyer, J. Daniel McGrath

Page 3 of response to FOIA denial by the Village Lawyer, J. Daniel McGrath

May 15, 2009

J. Daniel McGrath
Acting Representative for
Village of Midlothian
4610 West 147th Street
Midlothian, Illinois 60445

RE:  Your letter dated May 12, 2009 in reference to my communications on May 5, 2009

Dear Mr. McGrath,

Perhaps most importantly in this whole communication is my pointing out that although you are quick to “advise” me, your letter dated May 12, 2009 continues to provide documentation by your own hand of your continued improper and unprofessional behaviors in connection with this issue as I will demonstrate in this follow-up to my declined request.

First, you dated your letter May 12th certainly brings your response in line with the 7 day time period, however it is shameful your lead-in statement reads “Re:  Undated FOIA Request Received on or About May 6, 2009.”  Not only does each original copy I delivered to Village Hall clearly state the date of submission to be May 5, 2009, it only solidifies my deep concerns about how our Village approaches its legal side of life.

Perhaps most importantly with this particular line item issue, your inability to identify the date on my documented request is not only absurd, the fact that Village Hall fails to date and time stamp the receipt of such official documentation continues to reflect a pattern of negligence and a lack of concern for potential liability, including these circumstances transpiring between myself and the Village.

Next, you make the statement “It is improper to submit request to multiple individuals.”  Not only is there no documented guidelines available to identify what is “improper” and what is not here in the Village of Midlothian, I will continue to carbon copy any and all I believe to be in need of such communications until such time I see clear evidence that one copy will receive the time and attention it deserves, including a date and time stamp.

Certainly you might race to compose yet another set of rules because of my sharing yet another observation with you, such as what you did with the rules regarding recording Village Board Meetings and the Illinois Public Access Counselor being involved, but I remain steadfast and confident in knowing the Village can ask you to write anything you want, including rules defining what is “proper” and “improper” when it comes to a FOIA request, but if the rules are not crafted in compliance with existing laws and rules, I will continue to categorically reject them just as I continue to do with the current recording guidelines and proceed accordingly and your FOIA rejection letter.

You also state “In your improperly filed requests,” which further demonstrates your willingness to not act in the best interest of the Village when it comes to their obligation to interpret the law.  If my FOIA request was “improperly filed,” as you stated twice, you should have stated as such, made “advisement” I submit a new request, sign the document and then send it off.

Instead, you proceeded to acknowledge the receipt of such a document, you acknowledge multiple copies exist and then you state that only two will be treated as valid(?)

Therefore, it spirit of good faith resolution, I also will continue to proceed with this conversation despite a lack of the “proper form.”

Your decline of both of my requests using the statement “The request for such a large volume of data would be unduly burdensome on the Village of Midlothian” is once again irresponsible at best, especially since only one of the two requests represents real logistical issues.  So even though you did not separate my requests, I will go ahead and address them as the separate requests they are.

Based on my own experience running accounts payable and accounts receivable software and processes, I know for fact that a basic feature of the software is point and click reporting capabilities.  It is vital for any business to be able to pull up a report on any vendor at any time in order to perform a variety of tasks.  I specifically phrased this particular request knowing that accounting software has to allow room for reports and your denial on the grounds that it would somehow be “unduly burdensome.”

Therefore, my request for invoices surrounding codifying services in no way represents an undue or unreasonable burden to the Village and your joining this request with the other once again shows a complete failure on your part to represent the truth in your documented communications with me.

As for my second request to view all Village Ordinances from January 1, 2005 through May 1, 2009, although there are some logistics involved, the notion that my 2 formal requests to see a complete set of our laws represents an unreasonable or unfair burden again only reveals your total and complete unwillingness to help our Village come into compliance with the laws that govern Midlothian and out of the dark when it comes to the laws our Police Department, Building Department and everyone else is expected to enforce.

The bottom line is that Section 3(f) as you cited in no way protects the Village from the liabilities associated with the current invisible status of our Village Ordinances and it continues to be my judgment that it is your duty as a licensed legal professional to “advise” the Village that it is in everyone’s best interest to rectify this situation as quickly as possible.  It is your duty to display competence and confidence when communicating with the Voice of the Village and not this “undated FOIA request received on or about May 6, 2009” which is why I originally filed complaint against your professionalism last year.  The Village doesn’t have any legitimate legs to stand on should any lawyer or citizen choose to challenge these invisible laws and if a lawyer was receive the same stonewalling tactics as I have, including a lack of time and date stamp on official documents…you’re the lawyer.  Do you have confidence in explaining to a judge why such laws were unable to be produced on demand as our ordinance states the Village is obligated to do?  No one can even confirm whether or not the “baggy clothes” ordinance ever truly made it into our Code Book, but the Internet sure makes it look like it still exists.

It remains my opinion you should have been on the phone with Village Hall demanding to know exactly what day and time I submitted such a request since not only is such evidence vital to your position, it only has served to reinforce my position that the people of Midlothian continue to be victimized by outrageous and severely flawed reasoning when it comes to handling even the basics of managing a Municipality.

This last letter from you once again makes the Village look bad, especially if people such as myself, continue to remain wise enough to look past all of your stonewalling tactics as our Village Lawyer.

Therefore, since you acknowledged my first request regarding codifying services despite its proper format, then you should have no problem accepting my right to file my protest of your official judgment in this format and I will await the results of such a quick search of the Village’s database pertaining to the codifying issue.  As for the Ordinance issue, I also am protesting on the grounds I stated above and will be requesting your resignation shortly should you continue to serve this wonderful community with such unprofessionalism and lack of vision on how to put a lid on at least some of these mysterious rules and regulations swirling around.

After all, you’re the lawyer and according to you I am the loon in this situation…or at least that’s what you called me the last time I attempted to seek prompt resolution of another matter here in the Village.

Nothing can compare to being able to promptly see the laws for yourself, wouldn’t you agree?

P.S.  Please consider “advising” the Village that leaving Murawski’s name on the website in the slot saying “Mayor” has been a misrepresentation of the truth for the past 2 days and the Village can and should be held accountable for what it publishes on its website.

cc:    Mayor Terry Stephens
Village Clerk Mike Woike
Illinois Public Access Counselor