National Freedom of Information Coalition
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Tag: illinois

City of Quincy (IL) gets failing grade in online transparency

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The Illinois Policy Institute has released the latest round of Local Transparency Project audit results, this time measuring the transparency levels of some of Illinois’ largest municipalities.

IPI just completed an audit of the websites of the 26th through 50th largest municipalities in the state. Online transparency levels varied wildly from community to community. Scores ranged from Lombard’s perfect 100 percent to Romeoville’s dismal 29.7 percent.

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California, Illinois Add Transparency Measures

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Legislators in California and Illinois are working on transparency measures that would bring more of the public’s business out in the open. Yesterday, both houses of the Illinois statehouse passed a measure that will require state agencies to ensure that more information gets on to the state transparency portal faster. In California, a package of bills, known as the California Accountability in Public Service, or CAPS Act were proposed.

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Police misconduct files must be made public, court rules

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The Chicago Police Department can no longer keep misconduct records secret, a state appeals court has ruled.

The Illinois Freedom of Information Act doesn’t exempt “CR files,” which consist of misconduct complaints against officers and documents created during the investigations, the court found Monday.

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Using FOIA, the Chicago Tribune followed an undercover FBI agent’s formation of a political committee

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The Tribune used state records and trial transcripts to show how an undercover FBI agent, using the alias Carlos Vargas, formed a political committee while posing as a strip club manager in the Chicago suburb of Harvey.

The records list Vargas as providing about $140,000 to the committee, named The Harvey Good Government Group 2007. Fliers tied to the committee promoted the re-election of the suburb's controversial mayor.Continue>>>

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Mayor and City Clerk at odds over responsibility for FOIA requests

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The city of Belleville (IL) will use a new procedure and web system to handle requests for public records following tension between the mayor and city clerk.

Since the municipal election in April, Mayor Mark Eckert and City Clerk Dallas Cook have been at odds over whose job it is to gather and release public information.

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Illinois Central School District spends $400 in FOIA fight with newspaper

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From BND.com:

Central School District spent a little over $400 in a failed attempt to refuse a Freedom of Information Act request asking to review the district’s legal invoices.

The district paid its attorney Garrett Hoerner $402.50 for legal services related to the rejection of the FOIA request and later defense of the rejection during an investigation from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.

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Newspaper wins appeal for 2002 police report

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From ForestLeaves:

Hillside Police Department must turn over a 2002 police report describing the arrest of Emanuel “Chris” Welch for domestic battery, the Illinois attorney general ordered Friday.

Forest Leaves has been seeking the report since January, but Hillside police refused a Freedom of Information Act request, saying there was no arrest and that the matter was private.

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