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Community activist Amy Roe said she is suing the city of Newark after it denied her open records request for the minutes of closed-door sessions in 2013 and 2014, where they discussed a controversial data center plan.
Roe called going to court to enforce her request for documents “costly and burdensome.”
“The system is so broken,” said Roe, who recently became president of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government. “I don’t want to have to sue my own city. It’s just horrendous.”
Legislation sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend aims to make it easier to obtain records through the state’s Freedom of Information Act. But the bill keeps the court system as the only avenue that can legally compel a government body to reveal information it would rather keep under wraps.
Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act applies to public bodies and requires access to documents and meetings, unless they fall under one of 19 exemptions. Those include investigative files, autopsy records, documents related to pending litigation and state lawmakers’ emails.
