Response To Request
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-06-05
If a public body elects to abstract or summarize records, it can only charge for such a newly created record after a prior agreement with the requester.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-16-04
It appears that the intent of the law would indicate that if records do not exist, this should be stated in writing to the requester. once a deposit is requested from the public body, a requester does not have the right to demand that certain records that are believed to be easily accessible be provided…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-09-04
When choosing to withhold records from disclosure, the specific statutory authority must be cited; reference to a legislative bill is not appropriate. The school safety audit exemption does not apply to the entire audit, only the portions revealing specific security vulnerabilities.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-12-03
City of Newport News’ failure to provide one of the four enumerated responses to a FOIA request is a violation of the act; an action for mandamus or injunction may be pursued.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-47-01
A school district’s two-business-day advance notice for record requests comports with the general FOIA requirement that requests for information must be answered within five working days.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-34-01
Neither a volunteer fire company nor a committee created to handle the company’s finances are public bodies; the minutes taken by a non-public body nonetheless become public records when they are provided to a public body (such as a city council); a non-public body’s financial records in the possession of a local treasurer are not…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-21-01
Regarding duty to explain how the actual cost of searching for records was calculated; consecutive requests must be treated separately; public body may require a deposit if cost of providing records would exceed $200.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-11-00
public body not required to merge two separate databases to create a record containing the information sought by a requester; requester can ask for both databases and manipulate the raw data himself.
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Lawrence v. Jenkins
Not an FOIA violation when a public official chooses to exercise an exemption, redacted exempt information, but failed to timely cite the applicable Code section for the exemption.
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Attorney General’s Opinion 1989 #013
Public body not required to compile a record, but must notify the requester within the required time.
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Attorney General’s Opinion 1981-82 #440
Though using the entire period to release a readily available record is not a technical violation of FOIA, it probably violates the spirit of the law where release would not have any way hampered the orderly administration of government.