FOIA Friday: City ordered to hire document expert
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A Wayne County judge is resorting to exhaustive measures to ensure the city is not withholding public records involving potential truck traffic near the east side's new Jeep plant.
Driving the news: Faced with repeated accusations that public records remain hidden, Circuit Court Judge Charles Hegarty on Wednesday ordered the city to pay for an independent document production expert to find out.
Why it matters: We've been closely following this lawsuit to shed light on the city's opaque methods for filling FOIA requests — and the independent expert should do just that.
- The expert likely will examine the search terms and other filters used to electronically search for emails in the case.
Catch up fast: The dispute landed in Hegarty's lap after Grosse Pointe Moving & Storage, a small business near the new Stellantis plant, sued the city in March for not answering its Freedom of Information Act request for traffic information.
- The city produced hundreds of pages of emails under Hegarty's previous orders. But lawyers for the moving company say they know about other documents that the city still isn't providing.
What they're saying: Hegarty ordered the hiring of the third-party expert despite assurances from city lawyers that all responsive documents had been produced.
- "If there were any limiters or restrictors used in the search, that will come to light and that could be a significant problem," the judge said on Wednesday. "I'm not trying to cause problems. I'm trying to help."
What's next: Hegarty also ordered both sides to meet, likely by the end of September, to hash out any underlying issues involving truck traffic near the Stellantis plant.