Mayor Byron Brown’s administration has long been hostile to requests for public documents from journalists. In recent months, that hostility has grown worse. Since this summer, the mayor’s law department and several of his commissioners have broken state law time and again in their responses — or failures to respond — to document requests by Investigative Post reporters.
Brown’s administration has failed to abide by the state Freedom of Information Law’s most basic requirements to respond to requests in a timely manner. The city’s top attorney, Corporation Counsel Cavette Chambers, has refused to answer our reporters’ formal appeals when Brown’s department heads have ignored their requests.
And Brown’s commissioners have failed to produce documents even after acknowledging they are public and easily retrieved. “Public trust begins and ends with transparency,” said Karim Abdulla, an attorney with the firm Finnerty Osterreicher & Abdulla, which specializes in media law. The firm has represented Investigative Post on numerous matters, including FOI requests.
