Date Posted: Tuesday, April 18th, 2023
Petitioner alleged that the Delmar School District Board of Education did not provide proper notice of its intention to make certain changes to the superintendent position in the December 8 and 13, 2022 meeting agendas for the open and executive sessions and that the Board must have met privately to decide on certain actions related to the superintendent position prior to the December 13, 2022 Board meeting.
DECIDED: The Board violated FOIA by giving insufficient notice on its December 8 and 13, 2022 meeting agendas of the executive sessions and the superintendent matters intended to be addressed in open session at these meetings. However, the Board met its burden to demonstrate that it did not violate FOIA by meeting privately prior to the December 13, 2022 meeting about the identified issues.
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Date Posted: Thursday, April 6th, 2023
Petitioner alleged that a certain public hearing notice was not separately posted on the website of the City of Delaware City and that the hearing was merely mentioned in the agenda for the public meeting.
DECIDED: We conclude that the City did not violate FOIA by failing to post this public hearing notice on the City’s website.
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Date Posted: Thursday, March 30th, 2023
Petitioner alleged that 1) the January 30, 2023 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting notice failed to include an agenda as required; and 2) a quorum of councilmembers met in person and communicated over email to discuss and make decisions about public business outside of a public meeting.
DECIDED: The Town violated FOIA by failing to establish that an agenda for the January 30, 2023 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting was properly posted. In addition, the Town Council violated FOIA by meeting via a constructive quorum without satisfying FOIA’s requirements for open meetings.
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Date Posted: Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023
Petitioner alleged that the Wilmington City Council voted privately in two executive sessions to select candidates for two Council seats in violation of FOIA.
DECIDED: The Council’s Committee of the Whole violated FOIA by voting via secret ballot in executive session at the November 28, 2022 and February 1, 2023 Committee meetings to recommend the selected candidates for two Council vacancies.
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Date Posted: Thursday, February 9th, 2023
Petitioner alleged that the State of Delaware Board of Elections violated FOIA by allowing board members to have visual and audio access to its January 9, 2023 virtual meeting but limiting the public to audio access.
DECIDED: The Board did not violate FOIA by allowing the public to access this meeting through audio means only.
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Date Posted: Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
Petitioner alleged that the State Employee Benefits Committee, Delaware Department of Human Resources failed to justify its denial of access to the redacted information in the Medicfill contract.
DECIDED: The Committee satisfied its burden of demonstrating that requested materials were appropriately withheld under the pending litigation exemption.
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Date Posted: Tuesday, February 7th, 2023
Petitioner alleged that the Trustees of the New Castle Common failed to respond to two requests for contracts.
DECIDED: The Trustees violated FOIA by failing to meet their burden of demonstrating that the requested contracts are exempt from disclosure.
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Date Posted: Friday, February 3rd, 2023
Petitioner alleged that the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services (“DHSS”) violated FOIA by denying access to an animal welfare complaint report.
DECIDED: The DHSS did not violate FOIA, as the requested record is exempt under the investigatory files exemption.
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Date Posted: Wednesday, January 25th, 2023
Petitioner alleged that the Delaware Department of Finance improperly denied his request for certain meeting minutes because he was not a citizen of Delaware.
DECIDED: The Department did not violate FOIA by denying access to the requested records.
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Date Posted: Tuesday, January 24th, 2023
Petitioner alleged that the Delaware Department of Education (“DOE”) violated FOIA by including in its cost estimate for email retrieval time to scrub email results and including in its potential administrative cost the time to redact documents.
DECIDED: This Office found no basis to conclude that DOE violated FOIA as alleged in the petition.
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