Thanks to a Municipal Minute reader who submitted a FOIA to the PAC asking for copies of any binding PAC opinions issued during the time that the Attorney General’s website has been down, we have a copy of the fourth binding PAC opinion of 2021.
In PAC Op. 21-004, the PAC found a municipality in violation of FOIA after it denied a FOIA request for communications between the city and an applicant for a zoning change. The city had denied the request arguing that the communications were part of the city’s “deliberative process” on the zoning application and were exempt under 7(1)(f) of FOIA. The PAC determined that the deliberative process exemption is limited to internal documents and does not cover records or communications shared with third parties. Because the requested record were exchanged between the city and a third party (the zoning applicant), they did not fall within the type of “inter- and intra-agency predecisional or deliberative material” that would be covered by the section 7(1)(f) exemption and, as a result, the PAC said they should have been released to the FOIA requester.