(a) The City Council, acting pursuant to the authority at M.C.L.A. § 15.236, designates the City Clerk/Treasurer as the FOIA Coordinator. He or she is authorized to designate other city staff to act on his or her behalf to accept and process written requests for the city’s public records and approve denials.
(b) If a request for a public record is received by fax or email, the request is deemed to have been received on the following business day. If a request is sent by email and delivered to a city spam or junk-mail folder, the request is not deemed received until one day after the FOIA Coordinator first becomes aware of the request. The FOIA Coordinator shall note in the FOIA log both the date the request was delivered to the spam or junk-mail folder and the date the FOIA Coordinator became aware of the request.
(c) The FOIA Coordinator shall review city spam and junk mail folders on a regular basis, which shall be no less than once a month. The FOIA Coordinator shall work with City Information Technology staff to develop administrative rules for handling spam and junk mail so as to protect city systems from computer attacks which may be imbedded in an electronic FOIA request.
(d) The FOIA Coordinator may, in his or her discretion, implement administrative rules, consistent with state law and this “Procedures and Guidelines” document to administer the acceptance and processing of FOIA requests.
(e) The city is not obligated to create a new public record or make a compilation or summary of information which does not already exist. Neither the FOIA Coordinator nor other city staff are obligated to provide answers to questions contained in requests for public records or regarding the content of the records themselves.
(f) The FOIA Coordinator shall keep a copy of all written requests for public records received by the city on file for a period of at least one year.
(g) The city will make this “Procedures and Guidelines” document and the “Written Public Summary” publicly available without charge. If it does not, the city cannot require deposits or charge fees otherwise permitted under the FOIA until it is in compliance.
(h) A copy of this “Procedures and Guidelines” document and the city’s “Written Public Summary” must be publicly available by providing free copies both in the city’s response to a written request and upon request by visitors at the city’s office.
(i) This “Procedures and Guidelines” document and the city’s “Written Public Summary” will be maintained on the city’s website at: www.cityofgrandblanc.com, so a link to those documents will be provided in lieu of providing paper copies of those documents.