How to Obtain Public Records in New Rochelle: FOIL, Property Portals and More

As Talk of the Sound has grown over the past 18 months, readers and contributors have demonstrated a strong interest in better accountability and increased transparency in New Rochelle — much to the dismay of certain individuals who find an informed public a threat.

Many readers have sent in tips and story ideas that have turned into significant stories. Illicit combat veteran benefits for Civil Service Commissioner Domenic Procopio, maintenance and grounds workers misappropriating school district vans and trucks for hunting trips and other personal use, theft of services by district employees and many other stories have come from reader tips. At the same time, we have gotten even more tips that do not pan out; tips that could have first easily been checked using online resources.

To help readers and contributors better sort the wheat from the chaff, we have put together a resource guide to help readers and contributors to do preliminary research, fact-check and otherwise refine information on their own before brining it forwward. From this effort, we hope to see more original reporting by New Rochelle residents and more solidly documented allegations when warranted.

The City of New Rochelle government and the New Rochelle Board of Education have an even track record when it comes to following the Freedom of Information Law although with the installation of a new City Clerk in January, things have now begun to improve dramatically. Sadly, the New Rochelle Board of Education is so bad on FOIL that it borders on criminal. According to sources in Albany, the New Rochelle school system is among the least complaint organizations in New York State. The one exception in New Rochelle is the New Rochelle Police Department which has been generally excellent in complying with FOIL.

The New York State Committee on Open Government is responsible for overseeing and advising with regard to the Freedom of Information, Open Meetings and Personal Privacy Protection Laws. These laws are not long, difficult to read or understand and explained on the Committee on Open Government website. As an open, transparent government is a cornerstone of our democracy, all citizens should take 15 minutes to familiarize themselves with the site and FOIL which explains what is and is not subject to FOIL.

A few key points to know about FOIL.

1. Any agency covered by FOIL is required to have a designated public records access officer, maintain a list of documents available for inspection during normal business hours and publish on their web site instructions on how to obtain public records.

2. An agency that receives a public records request must confirm receipt within 5 business days and fulfill the request within 22 business days after that or provide an explanation as to why the request cannot be fulfilled or request an extension. If an extension is requested the agency must provide a detailed explanation as to why the extension is necessary. If the agency fails to comply with this timeline, they are considered to have “effectively denied” the request. If the agency denies or “effectively denies” a FOIL request, the citizen may file an appeal to the head of the agency. If that is denied they can take the agency to court and/or seek an advisory opinion from the New York State Committee on Open Government.

3. The law was updated a few years ago to take into account digital records and online communication. Today, an agency receiving a public records request by email must respond by email. Further, if the records are available electronically they must be provided in electronic form without the statutory 25 cents per page charge (the exception being if it takes more than 2 hours to compile the records, see the full law for details). If records are in electronic form and you request by email they must respond to you via email and generally they will then attach the documents so there is no charge for the records.

4. In requesting records, the citizen has the option to request to INSPECT the records or OBTAIN copies of the records. Inspect means you go to City Hall during normal business hours and review the records and pick any records you want copied; Obtain means they make copies of all them and hand them to you or mail them to you. For a larger request Talk of the Sound recommends asking to INSPECT the records to see how many they have and which ones are worthwhile. If you have one, you can bring a digital camera and take photos of each record which is the same as scanning the documents. This provides a double benefit — the citizen saves 25 cents per page and gets electronic “scans” of each page.

5. Who to contact in New Rochelle

The public records officer for the City is the City Clerk, Bennie Giles.

Bennie Giles bgiles@ci.new-rochelle.ny.us

The public records officer for the New Rochelle Police Department, Captain Kevin Kealy

Kevin Kealy Kkealy@ci.new-rochelle.ny.us

The public records office for the Board of Education is the Schools Clerk, Liz Saraiva.

Liz Saraiva LSaraiva@newrochelle.k12.ny.us

The public records office for the Business Improvement District (BID) is

Ralph Dibart ralphdibart@rcn.com

There are other agencies you may wish to NYS FOIL such as the Westchester County Health Department, the District Attorney’s Office, the Westchester County Police, BOCES, LHRIC and all of the other state and county departments. Google is your friend here. Likewise, all departments of the federal government are covered under FOIA. Again, check Google for details.

6. What to say in your request

Send an email with a subject header such as “Public Records Request”

The body of the email should be something like this:

This is a public records request.

[insert a reasonable description of what you want here]

Where possible I would like records in electronic format. If possible, I would like the electronic documents converted into standard Microsoft Office format (Word, Excel, etc.). I would like all communications including the delivery of documents to take place via email as much as is possible based on the nature of the available records.. I would like the Records Access Officer to certify that the records are genuine. If the documents only exist in paper form I am willing to pay. If the cost of converting the documents to a standard electronic format or making photos copies exceeds $20.00 I would like prior notification of the estimated cost to comply with this records request.

7. You cannot ask the agency to do work for you. They are only required to produce existing records. You can not ask them to perform calculations or analysis. So, you can request the Mayor’s expense forms for 2008 but you cannot ask them to tell you how much the Mayor spent on lap dances at Scores. Point being that you can get the raw records and perform the analysis yourself.

8. How to use the New Rochelle Property Portal

Perhaps the single most valuable online resource in New Rochelle is the “Property Portal”. Kathy Gilwit, the communications director, and Peter Campone, the IT director for have worked with Paul Vacca of the buildings department to create a nearly miraculous online product — the “Property Portal” which can be found on the brand new City of New Rochelle web site. The portal is fabulous but has one major flaw; the vendor which stores all the records has built it to work only with Microsoft Internet Explorer which effectively blocks about 40% of Internet users (all mac users and all windows users who use alternate browsers like Firefox, Chrome, etc.). They have promised to fix this so hopefully soon all users can access this portal (there are workarounds so email Talk of the Sound if you get stuck).

Many tips and questions sent to Talk of the Sound involve land use and structures on properties. In almost every case the answer is readily available in the Property Portal. Like the FOIL law, Talk of the Sound recommends that every resident of New Rochelle take a few minutes to familiarize themselves with the portal; at the very least check they should check the records for their own residence/property. There is a free version and a pay version ($12/mo). The free version is good enough for a quick check but a more thorough effort can only be done using the pay version. Talk of the Sound has an account and if you are doing research for a tip or story idea for Talk of the Sound, we can help obtain records behind the pay wall.

If you have a concern that a neighbor has replaced a small one-car garage with a monstrous two-story garage, you can check the property card and see in seconds whether the new garage was approved. If you know someone opened a building permit year ago and wonder whether they ever closed it out and obtained a Certificate of Occupancy you can find that in the Property Portal. If you believe a City official is taking illicit Combat Veteran or STAR tax exemptions, you can find that here. If you want to prepare a tax certiori appeal and need to research the assessed value of comparable homes in your neighborhood you can do that here.

Given all the many ways that corruption in New Rochelle intersects with Real Estate, the Property Portal is like a desert island loaded with buried treasure. Just dig a little and you are sure to strike gold somewhere. Pay particular attention to property cards, open building permits and STAR exemptions on rental properties. Vacca and the buildings department have already revoked hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal STAR exemptions and this is not even their job (it is the tax assessor who is apparently to busy to be bothered with any sort of aggressive review of abuses of STAR).

We certainly did not cover everything here so if you have questions or suggestions on how to use public records to research stories or otherwise hold public employees accountable to tax payers add them to the comments.

A final note: if this topic holds a strong interest for you, I would be interested to discuss creating a Talk of the Sound FOIL Team. This would be a group of residents, including lawyers, who would work to make sure that every New Rochelle agency was always fully in compliance with the New York State Freedom of Information Law, provide guidance on how to best obtain public records and, when needed, make legal challenges to improper denial of public records or any other failure to comply with state law. If we could find a half-dozen people with at least one lawyer among them, we could bring about a real transformation in the level of opacity in New Rochelle. If you are interested please make contact.]