Dan Barrett, who sits on the board of the New England First Amendment Coalition, is skeptical that vexatious requesters are the problem with open records compliance. Barrett instead pointed to weaknesses in Connecticut’s FOIA law.
“The statute is unenforceable.” said Barrett.
Barrett also added that because there is no enforcement mechanism penalizing agencies who don’t abide by FOIA, agencies tend not to abide by FOIA. Connecticut’s FOIA law requires agencies to alert requesters of a denial of a request to inspect records within four business days of receiving a request. In some cases relating to more complicated requests, agencies can extend this up to ten days. The law does not provide any sort of timeline by which agencies must turn over records to requesters. A requester can appeal a denial to the FOIC, but only has thirty days from the date they receive the denial to do so.
Barrett pointed to the city of Bridgeport, which has been brought before the FOIC multiple times for FOIA noncompliance to highlight the commission’s lack of ability to enforce its findings.
“The FOIC ends every decision against the city with an order to henceforth comply with the law," Barrett said, noting they’ve done so multiple times with apparently no affect. [...]
