McHenry County Blog

You’d think that when one public entity does a study for another public entity that maybe, just maybe, the study would be in the public domain.

I read about a study that Amtrak performed for the Illinois Department of Transportation.

It has to do with starting a one-train a day run to and from Dubuque, Iowa, but my interest is what it says about the possibility of the passenger train going through Huntley and Marengo.

I got details from Mark Magliari, Amtrak’s Chicago spokesman, but I wanted to read the report.

The March 22nd reply:

Your request has been denied for the following reason:

c. The requested records are exempt from inspection and copying pursuant to 5ILCS 140/7 (1) (f).

It’s our old friend from the Freedom of Information Act:

(f) Preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated, except that a specific record or relevant portion of a record shall not be exempt when the record is publicly cited and identified by the head of the public body. The exemption provided in this paragraph (f) extends to all those records of officers and agencies of the General Assembly that pertain to the preparation of legislative documents.

That’s the same excuse used by McHenry County College.

Labels: Amtrak, FOI, Freedom of Information Act, IDOT, Illinois Department of Transportation, McHenry County College