Charlottesville apparently denies public information request from Virginia resident...





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 appears to show that the actual request submitted to, and therefore likely received by the Charlottesville Police Department was not submitted in my name, but in the name of a proxy filer who indicated in the request that they are a Virginia resident. 









Proxy filing is not only legal, but encouraged by many experts on the Virginia Freedom of Information Act for requesters who live out-of-state. 










Despite these facts, the Charlottesville Police Department denied Mr. Tom Nash's FOIA Request on May 3, 2019. The stated reason given by the Charlottesville Police Department is that they are allegedly "unable to process your request because we have not been able to determine that you are an entity eligible to make a FOIA request to the City of Charlottesville." 










Even more bizarre is that the denial is to me, not Mr. Nash who appears to have submitted the request, and was also not sent by the Public Information Officer for the Charlottesville Police Department (Tyler Hawn), but instead was sent by the Public Information Officer for the City of Charlottesville (Brian Wheeler). I have reached out to the City of Charlottesville for clarification and will update this article with any new information I receive. 











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