When Local Governments Feign Incompetence, Rather than Display Good Service(s) and Transparency…

Evanston, Illinois — April 11, 2011 — According to a written letter from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, W. Grant Farrar, Corporation Counsel to the City of Evanston, lied about the City’s attempt to comply with a February 21, 2010 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request:

“In a phone conversation with our Office July 22, 2010, Mr. Farrar indicated that he believed some attempts were made to reach Mr. Jenkins by phone to confer on narrowing the scope of the request, and at least one answering machine message was left. Mr. Jenkins FOIA request, however, does not contain a contact phone number.”

Citing 5 ILCS 140/3(g), a part of the Act that allows public bodies to skirt around transparency demands from citizens in cases where “the request is unduly burdensome” and that “burden outweighs the public interest in the information,” Farrar attempted to argue Evanston’s exclusion under 3(g) despite the fact that the Act, itself, is very clear about what information “outweighs the burden” of document production.

But don’t let folks like Farrar fool you. If you’re light-footed enough to accept that a City with over 900 employees has in its possession no documents listing the name, position, and salary of each such employee, than you might want to look at the Act itself; 5 ILCS 140/1.

Here’s what Assistant Public Access Counselor, Matthew C. Rogina, had to say about 5 ILCS 140/1 on July 26, 2010:

“The public has a substantial interest in who is employed by public bodies, what positions and departments those employees fill, and how much those employees are paid. See 5 ILCS 140/1.”

That’s right. The City of Evanston’s [legal] Counsel, denied a relatively routine request for information based on a limited exclusion to the Act, several paragraphs in, but ignored the burden specifically stated in the first line. Or, at least that’s what they’d have us believe…

According to Cicero Watchdog, David Jenkins, “it’s a sad state of affairs, when local governments would rather display incompetence, than good citizen service and transparency.”

But there’s more…

The City of Evanston has had a history of violating the Open Meetings Act (OMA). A little more than ten years ago, Chicago Tribune reporter, Bob Cox, wrote an article about a closed-meeting concerning a big Evanstonian development. And Daily Northwestern’s Annie Martin chronicled the Attorney General’s criticism of Evanston City government, in another.

To view all 28 pages of employees, click here.

To view the Better Government Association’s poorly managed government database, which contains less than 10% of the actual list, click here.

NOTE: This database only tracks the Township governments.

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