East Central Reporter

The director of the Edgar County Emergency Telephone System Board (ETSB) has been told a second time to provide records to a citizens oversight group after failing to do so several months ago.

According to a letter from the Illinois attorney general's public access counselor to the ETSB, Kirk Allen of the Edgar County Watchdogs (ECW) submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request of records of radio/telephone traffic related to an incident that involved an employee of the sheriff’s department.

"On February 9, 2017, the Public Access Bureau issued a determination in a prior Request for Review submitted by Mr. Allen (2016 PAC 44873) concluding that the Board had improperly asserted that it did not possess recordings concerning a specific incident which it maintained on a recorder shared with the Edgar County Sheriffs Department," the letter said.

Despite being told at the time that the board could not deny the FOIA request, it did so, this time on the grounds that it involved an open case. 

The public access counselor did not agree.

"Neither the Board' s response to the FOIA request nor its response to this office explained how disclosure of the 9-1-1 call and dispatch records requested by Mr. Allen would create a substantial likelihood that a person would be deprived of a fair trial," the counselor, Marie Hollister, wrote in the letter to the board on April 19. "In accordance with the conclusions expressed in this letter, this office requests that the Board provide Mr. Allen with copies of the requested records."