NORWALK, Conn. – Want to see what was discussed at any Norwalk Common Council or Board of Education meeting for the past few years? Just go to the appropriate website page, click and download.
Want to know what your mayor has been up to for the past year or two? That is a little more complicated.
In fact, if our experience is any indication, you will not see the actual calendar, but a specially created spread sheet that must be taken on faith to include an accurate record of the mayor’s activities.
After NancyOnNorwalk obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request a copy of what was presented as the mayor’s activities, at least one line jumped out as incorrect: Nancy Chapman did not meet nor did she have an appointment to meet with the mayor from 6:15 to 7:15 p.m. Jan. 6, 2012, at Brookside School.
So just how accurate is this spread sheet?
One of the reasons FOIA exists to provide public access to actual records and documents, not a reasonable facsimile.
Creating the document was apparently no mean feat. According to Deputy Corporation Counsel Jeffry Spahr, Moccia’s executive assistant, Sally Johnson, said a recent request for Richard Moccia’s daily calendar took at least 20 hours of work.
The initial FOIA request was made on March 7; the results were delivered on March 15 and March 27 and cost $68.
The difficulty in getting the public records detailing with what Norwalk’s top official was doing in the public’s name while being compensated by the taxpayers of Norwalk was eyebrow raising.
The first, informal request to Spahr made March 5 drew this response two days latter: “I have checked with the Mayor’s Office, he does not maintain a public calendar.”
A second request that day invoked the Freedom of Information Act, requesting the mayor’s calendar “and any existing logs concerning who has come to see him.”
Spahr replied the next day with, “I am working on this. … Please note that we will process this request within a reasonable period of time given all the demands on my time (as required by the FOI Act).”
On March 15, Spahr delivered the 2011 calendar via email, in an excel format, with a note about the time and labor involved.
The email included an email sent to Spahr from Moccia. “We are working on 2012 and expect to have it for next week,” he said.
On March 22, Spahr said by email that the 2012 calendar was prepared; the email contained a note from Johnson: “It took me 4 days and each day was 5 hours.”
A check was given to Johnson on March 26. Asked what took so long, Johnson motioned with her hands and said that as time went by it became more difficult, fumbling a bit, before stopping. She said the mayor would have to explain.
Moccia did not return an email asking for an explanation.
NancyOnNorwalk also requested on March 11 a record of Business and Marketing Director Tad Diesel’s activities in 2011 and 2012. It was delivered on March 28; both years together in an excel format. There were no comments made about the amount of time it took, no request for payment. Diesel did note that he had removed personal items, such as birthdays.
Lisa Thomson of Red Apples, an advocate for education reform and transparency in government, was surprised at how much time it took for the mayor’s office to get the information. “Surprised that it took 20 hours,” she said, in an email. “I would have thought that it was loaded into a Digital calendar or in a 365-page diary that could have been photo copied.”
Jackie Lightfield of Norwalk 2.0, who has been pushing for better technology at City Hall, had also expected photocopies. “That is strange, because presumably they would only have to photocopy either 365 pages of an analog diary or print out the pages, which would take all of an hour at most,” she said in an email. “This isn’t a tech issue, but instead a fundamental way of doing business.”
The documents do not list the activities of either official in a strictly chronological order.
We plan to seek the advice of the Freedom of Information Act Commission. We do not think the request was complied with according to the statute.
The documents are attached below.
– Mark Chapman contributed to this report.
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