Dewey Beach’s Administration has been non-compliant with a major newspaper’s information request at the end of December, and is now stonewalling DCAs recent Freedom of Information Act Requests (FOIA) seeking documents on the 1033 program:
- On January 9, 2018 DCA filed a FOIA formally requesting the Town of Dewey Beach insurance policy from December 2017, including the pages which contain the the insured property, vehicles and locations, which are items C and D.
- We received the FOIA response within the required 15 days that contained a partial February 2017 policy, it had missing pages, and was outdated, as it did not include the December 2017 endorsements for new vehicles and locations we know were added in December 2017 (based on separate information we received) nor did it have items C and D.
- We replied to the Mayor on February 2, 2018 detailing the insufficiency of the response to the FOIA request and requested (again) the December policy, and requested again the pages and items C and D.
- We then received a revised FOIA reply on February 6, 2018 containing a February 2018 policy adding vehicles after the date of our FOIA request (indicating they had added vehicles possibly due to our asking why they were not insured as required by the 1033 program). It did not include the requested December endorsement and changes C and D, and The Policy does not even take effect until February 18, 2018!
- We now have to resubmit the FOIA request of January, again requesting C and D, and some within Town hall denying residents the information we are allowed under the FOIA Statue, we will be pursuing this matter and report back.
It is important to note that Dewey has not claimed this information to be confidential and exempt from FOIA (it’s not anyway). Dewey just has failed to provide the required documents. Our FOIA request is simple, clear and repeated. There does not appear to be transparency in Town hall or with the Mayor or even a willingness to comply with the FOIA statute. The Town of Dewey has its own FOIA page, so it understands the Law. We are copying the fifth to and from Dewey exchange to the FOIA Officer in the Delaware Attorney General’s office who investigates FOIA Violations. This should move things forward, but from now on when the town claims transparency, we will take issue with that claim on this simple matter.
FOIA Insurance Links
http://www.deweycitizens.org/images/documents/TDBInsurancePt1.pdf
http://www.deweycitizens.org/images/documents/TDBInsurancePt2.pdf