16-IB02 1/14/2016 FOIA Opinion Letter to Mr. Michael Dworiak re: FOIA Complaint Concerning Bethany Beach
Petitioner requested from the Town “copies of Bethany Beach Police Department’s policies and procedures related to internal affairs investigations, discipline and code of standards or conduct and the completed internal affairs investigations statistical summaries for the years 2011 through 2014.” The Town produced the policies and procedures, but denied the request for the internal affairs investigations statistical summaries, claiming to provide such summaries would be out of compliance with the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBOR) due to the police force’s small size. Held: There is no FOIA violation. Town policy that would otherwise make such records available to the public is subordinate to the state LEOBOR statute, which protects records of internal affairs investigations from disclosure.
Read More16-IB01 1/7/2016 FOIA Opinion Letter to Mr. Daniel Kramer re: FOIA Complaint Concerning Sussex County Council
Petitioner raised several questions: (1) whether the County Administrator presented the new pay grades and job descriptions to Council for approval;(2) why discussion of pay grades and job descriptions was conducted in executive session; (3) why pay grades and job descriptions were not discussed in public at the May 12, 2015 Council meeting when they had been discussed at the March 30, 2015 Board meeting; (4) whether Council could vote on pay grades and job descriptions at the June 16, 2015 meeting when they were not specifically listed in the budget; (5) whether the executive session minutes for the May 5, 2015 and May 12, 2015 Council meeting were public documents under FOIA;[5] and (6) whether the March 30, 2015 Board meeting was properly noticed. Held: No FOIA violations occurred.
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