Muh Freeze Peach

On May 8, 2019, I submitted multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to the Charlottesville Police Department. That evening, the Public Information Officer for the city of Charlottesville denied them all. Although the requests were submitted under the name Tom Nash, the denials were addressed to me. Oddly enough, on March 15, 2019, the unknown person running the Charlottesville Police Department Twitter account liked a tweet in which a Virginia resident offered to submit FOIA requests by proxy for me, appearing to signal their approval and encouragement.  According to a podcast published on January 10, 2019 by WINA radio, the account was created and is run by Charlottesville Police Department Public Information Officer Tyler Hawn.  It's unclear the rationale of the city of Charlottesville for continuing to deny FOIA requests from Virginia residents. This leaves me in an even worse position as I have no legal right t...

On April 25, 2019, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for public information to the Charlottesville Police Department. The request was submitted through Muckrock, a website designed to promote greater government transparency and make filing a FOIA request easier for the public. I purchased a Muckrock Professional account for $40, which gives me up to 20 FOIA requests through the site every month and includes a feature which detects if you are filing from out-of-state and then submits the requests through a group of volunteer proxy filers. A proxy filer is someone who takes the place of the actual filer, and in this case, the proxy filer appears to be a Virginia resident who has successfully submitted previous FOIA requests to the Charlottesville Police Department with no issues.  Muckrock also includes a feature where you are able to view the actual email data. The email data for this particular requests ap...

The Charlottesville Transparency Project is now live on Muckrock. The goal is to bring a little sunlight to a city that certainly appears to need it badly. The Charlottesville Transparency Project is a 100 % self-funded, non-commercial investigative journalism project and public service to the residents of Charlottesville and the entire state of Virginia. If you'd like to help or have a question you'd like answered, email me at rblee22468@gmail.com . 

I recently signed up for an account at Muckrock and have submitted 4 trial Freedom of Information Act requests through the site. Muckrock has a cool feature that automatically detects if you requests need a proxy filer. Muckrock has a team of proxy filers in states that bar out-of-state requesters.  Initial responses to these 4 requests are due by tomorrow. We will see how this goes.