St. Clair Co., Ill. (ECWd) –
The St. Clair County Veterans Assistance Commission (“VAC”) is violating the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) by refusing to provide records requested.
The VAC did provide partial records, but failed to provide the salaries of their employees, and contact information for their commissioners.
We have asked them twice to provide all of the records requested, and there has been no response.
Our FOIA requests were sent on July 9 and July 10. They responded with partial records to the July 9 request and have not responded to the July 10 request.
We must now decide whether to appeal to the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor (“PAC”) or file a lawsuit in St. Clair County Circuit Court – because permitting them to ignore the FOIA law is unacceptable.
The records we requested and not provided are public records and must be released:
- Salaries of all employees of the commission
- Contact information of all Commissioners
Simple things that will cost the VAC in legal fees, but their hired attorney is probably counting on that.
2 Responses
My findings lately are there is an increased resistance to FOIA by public officials.
Until there are consequences for violations it won’t change. Governing bodies don’t care because they know they will not be held personally accountable. If they get sued then taxpayers fork over payments. Hold them personally responsible!