The story on the repeated damage to the signs at the Seventh and Washington Pedestrian Refuge Island Wednesday was based on a letter I received denying a FOIA request. Even though I was given exactly the information that I asked for, the request was returned as a denial, because I didn't follow the process correctly.

The denial letter

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The letter embedded above was signed by Roger Fraser, City Administrator, and dated Feb. 3, 2010. It addresses an appeal I made regarding some questions that I had asked of a city employee that were not answered.

The deconstruction of this letter, as best I can interpret it, is as follows:

You never asked for public records

"Because your request was solely for information, it was not a request under the FOIA and you do not have a statutory right to appeal the lack of a response by City staff."

The argument here is that the FOIA governs the release of "public records," and requests for "a compilation, summary, or report of information" are specifically exempted by MCL 15.233(4).

Properly, then, the follow-up request will ask specifically for "records," not "information," so that it's clear that I'm not asking for anyone to make sense of what they see, but simply to provide duplicates of existing documents.

The city is not required to respond to requests for information

The logic here, as best I understand it, is that because this was not a proper FOIA request, that it did not have to be answered.

My big failing, when looking back on it, was asking my question of the city staff member listed as the project contact, whom the website recommends "For questions, comments or concerns, please contact," instead of directing the request to the FOIA coordinator.

State law in MCL 15.236(1) states:

(1) A public body that is a city, village, township, county, or state department, or under the control of a city, village, township, county, or state department, shall designate an individual as the public body's FOIA coordinator. The FOIA coordinator shall be responsible for accepting and processing requests for the public body's public records under this act and shall be responsible for approving a denial under section 5(4) and (5). In a county not having an executive form of government, the chairperson of the county board of commissioners is designated the FOIA coordinator for that county.

If you ask for records, you should always contact the FOIA coordinator. I didn't do that in this case, not at first; I had questions, comments and concerns. Now, I have requests for records.

Ask again for something different after your appeal is denied

Despite the multiple levels of denial, the requested information was provided. It only served to prompt more questions.

I've asked Police Records to generate a log of incident reports for that corner since the installation of the pedestrian refuge island, so that I can figure out how many of the sign replacements were accompanied by reportable crashes, and what details from those crashes are common.

I've also send this more detailed FOIA request to the city FOIA coordinator, which is designed to get me the information which I thought I was asking for in the first place.

1. All records pertaining to the installation, maintenance, repair, inspection, replacement, accident investigation, citizen inquiry or complaint, or internal memos or correspondence regarding the Seventh St. at Washington St. Pedestrian Refuge Island, dated 10-1-2009 or later.

2. All records pertaining to the costs, fees, expenses, and internal funds allocations and transfers related to the inspection and reinspection and installation of signs at that pedestrian island, including expenses corresponding to the dates of sign replacement indicated on FOIA response denial letter from R. Fraser dated Feb 3, 2010 which references incidents occuring on 10-16-09, 10-19-09, 11-4-09, 12-11-09, 12-16-09, 12-21-09, 12-28-09, 1-4-10, 1-13-10, and 1-20-10.

3. All records used to compile the report on the FOIA response denial letter from R. Fraser dated Feb 3, 2010, attached.

The internal records associated with the first response might be cumbersome to retrieve, so it's possible I'll need to modify that request to get in under any kind of reasonable budget. I've set a trigger of $25 beyond which I'll need to get approval.

I don't know yet how the internal accounting system for the Signs and Signals department works, and there may not be separate cost accounting for each incident.

"All records used to compile the report" should be easy to satisfy, let's hope.

Edward Vielmetti plays Frogger for AnnArbor.com. You can reach him at 734-330-2465.