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Mostly Cloudy Hewlett Harbor sees 'excessive' ' FOILS, lawsuit pending
An unusually high number of Freedom of Information Law request for public records has compelled the Village of Hewlett Harbor to hire another employee and generated a pending lawsuit.
Enacted in 1967, the Freedom of Information Act allows citizens access to information that is considered critical to the functioning of a democratic society by giving them the right to request records from any government agency.
Described as the law that “keeps citizens in the know about their government” on the FOIA website, what has become known as “foiling” for information is now standard practice for journalists prospecting for stories and searching for information at all levels of municipalities, and for civic organizations keeping tabs on local issues.
In the Five Towns, many of the Freedom of Information Law requests submitted to the villages come from property owners and surveyors, typically before they begin site construction.
The number of requests varies across the Five Towns. In Cedarhurst, Village Administrator Sal Evola said there are 10 or so FOILs each month, seeking, for example, records of lawsuits or maintenance records associated with property being developed.
Lawrence Village Administrator Ron Goldman said that the Building Department receives dozens of FOIL re-quests each year, and a dozen more are directed to the village, with that number increasing during the last three village elections.
Atlantic Beach officials said the village itself receives very few FOILs, but the Building Department fields roughly 20 per year.
Surprisingly, three of the smaller Five Towns villages, Hewlett Bay Park, Hewlett Neck and Woodsburgh, receive as many as 300 FOIL requests per year, nearly all property-related.
But Hewlett Harbor, a village with a population of just 1,500, has been inundated for the past three-plus years with FOIL requests from resident John Novello and others.
In 2018, Novello ran for village trustee, and more recently he directed the election campaigns of candidates for the village boards in Hewlett Harbor and Lawrence.
In two unrelated legal matters, Novello has pleaded guilty to grand larceny and mortgage fraud, and is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 27.
Novello and others generated so many FOIL requests that Hewlett Harbor has collected them in two accordion folders, and village officials said they used three reams of paper in responding to them, some of which have spawned pending lawsuits.
What was FOILed? Lists of those who voted in past elections, and of those who voted in last September’s election. Absentee ballot applications, and village meeting minutes. One request asked for all the records pertaining to a dozen different things, ranging from the scheduling and cost of a village board meeting that was not held in Village Hall, to whether a non-resident of the village can serve as an elected official.
Those are considered legitimate concerns, but, according to Hewlett Harbor officials, the constant stream of FOIL requests resulted in hours of work devoted to responding to the requests, the appeals and the legal actions that otherwise would have been focused on village operations.
Village attorney Merick Aaron, a Hewlett Harbor resident who has served as the chief FOIL officer for the Town of Hempstead, said that citizens are entitled to a wide range of information, but do not have the right to disrupt the function of government.
“It was excessive, in my opinion,” Aaron said of all of the FOIL requests. “It takes time to copy and collate the documents, and it is slowing down the operation of the village. We denied some information, because we thought it was an invasion of privacy. It got to the point of slowing down the village that they wound up hiring a third person part-time. That is a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Aaron noted that in some instances, such as the counting of ballots, Novello already had access to the information he was requesting. In another instance, his FOIL request yielded more votes for the already victorious incumbents in last year’s village election.
In March, the New York State Committee on Open Government answered a question from upstate resident Richard Leimgruber on what a municipality could do if it decided not to respond to what were characterized as frivolous FOIL requests.
Unfortunately, FOIL does not provide an exception for ‘frivolous requests’ or otherwise specifically address alleged abuses of the law which may tend to harass or overburden an agency,” Kristin O’Neill, the committee’s assistant director, wrote. “Not only is the law silent on the issue of alleged frivolous use by FOIL requesters, but there is also very little in the way of case law regarding allegedly ‘abusive’ use of FOIL.”
John Ciampoli, who is representing Novello as the pending FOIL litigation is decided in Nassau County Supreme Court, said that he has been on both sides of the issue, representing government agencies and individuals.
“That’s why they have that big building in Mineola,” Ciampoli said, referring to the courthouse. Novello is suing the village for access to more information.
Asked if the number of FOILS submitted to Hewlett Harbor was excessive, Ciampoli said, “No, I think what we’ve done is structure it to be as un-onerous as possible.”
Have an opinion on the Freedom of Information Law? Send letter to jbessen@liherald.com.
