https://www.dos.ny.gov/coog/index.html
Learn your rights, what you are entitled to, how to obtain that information, best way to ask for records (sample letters), how to appeal a denial of records.
Once you look around on the above site, you will learn understand the laws , but if you get stuck, there is also information available how to reach out COOG for assistance.
Some Basics information will need to be found on the municipal website or code/charter. You will need to know who the FOIL access officer(s) and who is the APPEAL Officer
According the Village of Ilion Code book:
Chapter 181 Records, Public ( Adopted 10-8-1974 by resolution) no updates noted since 1974)
181-2. Records access officer. •
The Village Clerk is hereby designated as the records access officer of the Village of Ilion.
181-8. Access denials.
In the event that any person is denied access to any public records in violation of the law, that person shall advise the Board of Trustees of such denial, in writing, and set forth the records requested, the reason for denial and the fact that the fees for such records were, in fact, tendered.
This following Code would not, be held up in Court, per Opinion of COOG:
181-3. Application and availability of records.
A. Persons seeking public records shall make application to the records access officer upon the application form supplied by such officer, in the event that such records are not readily available.
https://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f17965.html
We are in receipt of your request for an advisory opinion regarding application of the Freedom of Information Law to records requested from the City of New Rochelle. Specifically, you indicated that the City now requires you to submit written requests for records on a prescribed form and will not respond to requests for records submitted via email. Further, you wrote that the City charges a per page photocopy fee for electronic records transmitted via email. In this regard, we offer the following comments.
First, as you know, in August of 2006, the Legislature amended §89(3) of the Freedom of Information Law to require agencies to receive and respond to requests for records via email, as follows:
"b) All entities shall, provided such entity has reasonable means available, accept requests for records submitted in the form of electronic mail and shall respond to such requests by electronic mail..."
Accordingly, it is our opinion, that if an agency such as the City of New Rochelle has the ability to receive and respond to requests via email, it is required do so.
Second, although an agency may, pursuant to §89(3)(a) of the Freedom of Information Law, require that a request be made in writing, we do not believe that an agency can require that a request be made on a prescribed form. As required by §89(3)(b) of the Freedom of Information Law, the Committee on Open Government has created model forms that may be used by the public when requesting records via email and by agencies for use in responding to those requests. Those forms, however, are merely recommended models or templates, and agencies may choose to adopt the form recommended by the Committee, alter it, or create its own form. Notwithstanding that guidance, there is nothing in the Freedom of Information Law that requires that a person seeking records must use an agency’s prescribed form. That being so, although use of the City of New Rochelle’s form may be of benefit to a person seeking City records, we do not believe that the City may require use of the City’s form, either in paper or via email.
We have also advised that a failure to complete a form prescribed by an agency cannot serve to delay a response or deny a request for records. A delay due to a failure to use a prescribed form might result in an inconsistency with the time limitations imposed by the Freedom of Information Law. For example, assume that an individual requests a record in writing from an agency and that the agency responds by directing that a standard form must be submitted. By the time the individual submits the form, and the agency processes and responds to the request, it is probable that more than five business days would have elapsed, particularly if a form is sent by mail and returned to the agency by mail. Therefore, to the extent that an agency's response granting, denying or acknowledging the receipt of a request is given more than five business days following the initial receipt of the written request, the agency, in our opinion, would have failed to comply with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Law.
In sum, it is our opinion that the use of standard forms is inappropriate to the extent that it unnecessarily serves to delay a response to or deny a request for records.
With respect to the fees that an agency may charge for electronic records sent via email, we know of no basis in the law on which an agency could rely on to charge for such records. Section 87(1)(b)(iii) authorizes an agency to charge up to twenty-five cents for a photocopy as large as nine by fourteen inches, or in the case of other records, the actual cost of reproduction. When records are emailed, no photocopies are made, and therefore, in our opinion, the agency would have no basis to charge a photocopy fee.
On behalf of the Committee on Open Government, we hope that this is helpful.
CSJ:jm
cc: Rita Colangello, Acting City Clerk Charles Strome III, City Manager Captain Kevin Kealy
181-3.
C. The records access officer is hereby directed to make available to persons requesting records those public records which, by law, are required to be made available for public inspection and copying, generally during regular business hours. However, in the event that the request for public records interferes with the operation of the office of the Village Clerk and makes it difficult for members of the public to receive the regular services of the Clerk, the records access officer is hereby authorized to establish hours during each day when he shall process requests for records, including the times when such requests shall be made, in order to enable him to find the records for review and copying. The times so established by the records access officer shall be conspicuously posted in the office of the Village Clerk.
https://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f10227.
"inquiry, based on the regulations promulgated by the Committee on Open Government and an unanimous decision rendered by the Appellate Division, it was advised that the District is required to make records available during the entirety of its regular business hours on a day in which it authorizes inspection of records."
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