The Springfield City Council on Tuesday night pressed for an answer to a question
contained in a Freedom of Information Act request filed last week by Illinois
Times. That question: What are the race and sex statistics for city employees?
Officials in other cities readily answered this question when contacted by Illinois Times and offered even more detailed statistics [see Dusty Rhodes, “What are they hiding?” Sept. 2]. But Ernie Slottag, director of communications for the city of Springfield, said that Springfield’s corporation counsel had determined that basic information could not be released.
“We can’t give that out because that’s personnel information,” he said.
On Friday, the controversy was picked up by other media outlets, which focused on a request from the office of Courtney Cox, the attorney for plaintiffs in a race-discrimination lawsuit against the city. Cox’s assistant, Judy Carson, had in August filed a sweeping FOIA request seeking all Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports ever filed by the city of Springfield. These reports would contain more detailed information specific to departments and employees’ ages and pay range.
Neither Cox nor Carson had informed Illinois Times of Carson’s request, which had been denied by the city and subsequently appealed by Cox. Instead, this paper’s FOIA request was based on questions posed by the Mayor’s Task Force on Race Relations.
On Aug. 31, Illinois Times filed a request designed to allow the city to respond in whatever terms might be legally possible, asking for a “race/gender breakdown of city employees overall by whatever terms are easiest — numbers, percents, whatever.” That FOIA request was denied by Slottag, who said he was speaking on behalf of the city’s legal department.
A week later, at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards, Ward 3 Ald. Frank Kunz, and Ward 7 Ald. Judy Yeager repeatedly asked for this same general information. Corporation counsel Jenifer Johnson responded by saying that she had not researched the question.
“Can we as a whole give that number out and not break it down to departments? Because I’ll request that,” Edwards said.
“I’ll go back and review the case,” Johnson said. “It’s my understanding that it’s personnel information.”
“So all the other cities that are doing this are breaking the law, in your opinion?” Kunz inquired.
“That’s what I was going to ask,” Yeager said.
Johnson responded: “It’s not a matter of breaking the law. I don’t know . . .”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Kunz interrupted. “It either is or it isn’t. In your opinion, are all these other cities breaking the law?”
“The city of Springfield seems to be sued a lot more regularly than other cities,” Johnson replied.
“Yeah,” Kunz said. “That’s because we’re a bunch of bozos most of the time.”
Throughout the discussion, Johnson referred to a state appellate court ruling concerning EEO reports, saying that ruling determined her stance. However, on Wednesday, after learning what case Johnson was citing, Cox reviewed the appellate ruling and found it irrelevant.
“In that case the county turned over the EEO reports we are asking for. The fight was about the names. The plaintiff wanted more than the raw numbers. They wanted the names matched to the race of the person,” Cox says. “We have not asked for the names . . . . The case does not support her position.”
This article appears in Sep 9-15, 2004.
