Date Posted: Tuesday, October 6th, 2020
Petitioner alleged that City applications for federal grants and emails with federal agencies were improperly withheld. The City argued that the completed applications were under the exclusive control of the federal government and email requests should be directed to the Delaware Department of Technology and Information. DECIDED: The City violated FOIA by denying the requests.
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Date Posted: Wednesday, July 22nd, 2020
Petitioner alleged that the Town Council of Fenwick Island violated FOIA because the Town officials should have discussed the matter of approving an open pool bar at a public meeting and certain Town officials made unauthorized statements about this approval.
DECIDED: As these issues are outside the scope of FOIA, no violation of FOIA occurred.
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Date Posted: Wednesday, July 1st, 2020
Petitioner alleged that the University of Delaware improperly denied its request for records related to the Vice President Biden senatorial papers maintained at the University library.
DECIDED: No FOIA violation was found, as the records were not “public records” subject to FOIA or were exempt pursuant to 29 Del. C. 10002(l)(12) as library patron records.
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Date Posted: Thursday, June 25th, 2020
Petitioner alleged that the University of Delaware improperly denied their request for records and communications related to Vice President Biden’s senatorial papers or communications between anyone acting on behalf of the university and Vice President Biden, his presidential campaign, or other person acting on his behalf.
DECIDED: No FOIA violation was found. The University of Delaware is exempt from FOIA except for the meetings of its Board of Trustees and records related to the expenditure of public funds. The factual record did not indicate that the records requested were related to the expenditure of public funds.
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Date Posted: Friday, May 22nd, 2020
The Petitioner alleged that the City of Harrington 1) improperly delayed a response to a FOIA request for certain items; and 2) did not respond to the remaining items in a timely manner.
DECIDED: This Office was unable to make a finding regarding whether the response was improperly delayed. Because the City has since provided the Petitioner with a response to the remaining items in his FOIA request, the second allegation is moot.
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Date Posted: Wednesday, April 8th, 2020
Petitioner alleged that DSP failed to timely respond to its request for records.
DECIDED: As DSP since provided a response, petitioner’s claim is now moot. DSP is cautioned to provide timely communications in the future.
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Date Posted: Wednesday, April 8th, 2020
Petitioner alleged that as a Delaware statute requires a certain firearms report be provided to the General Assembly, the State Bureau of Identification of the Delaware State Police (“DSP”) improperly denied his request for this report.
DECIDED: As DSP’s counsel represented this report does not exist and DSP’s compliance with any statute other than the FOIA statute is outside this Office’s authority, it was determined that DSP did not violate FOIA.
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Date Posted: Wednesday, April 8th, 2020
Petitioner alleged that New Castle County failed to timely respond to her FOIA request.
DECIDED: No FOIA violation, as New Castle County attempted to respond to the request by producing the requested records but made an inadvertent mistake in the petitioner’s email address. When notified, New Castle County rectified this inadvertent error and provided petitioner with the requested documents.
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Date Posted: Monday, April 6th, 2020
Petitioner alleges that as a Delaware statute requires a certain firearms report be provided to the General Assembly, the State Bureau of Identification of the Delaware State Police (“DSP”) improperly denied his request for this report.
DECIDED: As DSP’s counsel represented this report does not exist and DSP’s compliance with any statute other than the FOIA statute is outside this Office’s authority, it was determined that DSP did not violate FOIA.
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Date Posted: Monday, March 30th, 2020
Petitioner alleged DNREC improperly denied her request for a site safety report, but DNREC’s legal counsel responded the report did not yet exist.
DECIDED: No FOIA violation was found. FOIA does not require a public body to produce a record that does not exist.
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