A Whitestone resident and media producer is suing the Office of the Queens Borough President and the borough president herself, Melinda Katz, alleging repeated violations of the state’s Freedom of Information Law for failing to respond to his requests for information concerning records related to the Willets Point neighborhood.
Robert LoScalzo, who says he has been working on an independent documentary about the Willets Point area since 2007, says he requested records concerning meetings held by Katz on Jan. 29 and March 3 of this year to discuss the deteriorated streets in the area, a possible city Department of Transportation contract to repave the streets for $9.1 million, waste-hauling tractor-trailers that park in the neighborhood and the status of its redevelopment.
LoScalzo says he made his initial FOIL request on May 12 and an appeal on June 4, and didn’t receive a reply to either one.
State law requires one within five business days, and a lack of response is tantamount to a denial, according to the state Committee on Open Government, which monitors compliance with the FOIL and Open Meetings Law. The only recourse available is to sue an agency.
A copy of the lawsuit says it was filed on Aug. 12 in state Supreme Court in Queens.
Katz’s office said it has not been served with any suit and wouldn't comment on pending litigation if it had, but that it has responded to the FOIL request. The office did not respond to a question about when the response was sent, and as of press time, LoScalzo said he hadn’t received a response.
In a sharply worded press release, LoScalzo accused Katz of hypocrisy and duplicity with the public.
“Just before this past Fourth of July weekend, Melinda Katz sent an email to her list, quoting loftily from the Declaration of Independence and imploring everyone to read America’s founding documents and get acquainted with our hard-won rights,” the release said in part.
“Ironically, when those of us who know our rights attempt to exercise them at Borough President Katz’s office by requesting public records, those rights are denied.”
12 comments:
Obfuscation is the name of the game here. This is in light of the absolute frightening story of one of our city lawyers claiming in court that the NYPD can arrest anyone that inquires about a protest or speaks to actual protesters present at one, including celebrity reporters. And Mayor Big Slow getting into a row with Marcia Kramer about the amount of questions she's asking. These people think they are above the law and aren't accountable to anything or to anyone.
This actually was on that channel 9 Chasing News show last night. I wonder if this complainant sent this story to them. I was shocked to see it.
GOOD. Katz has been proven to big the most dangerous crooked Borough President. While Marshall was just a plain idiot and Schulman was crooked as well, Katz is intelligent, smart and a con artist, making her the most dangerous of all. Ironic with all the homeless shelters being dumped in her borough, NOT one word from her on this issue, NOT ONE. And the majority of the local media is not covering this HUGE homeless shelter scam either.
With the exception of a very few media outlets like Queens Crap & Progress Queens, many of these stories are NOT getting the coverage that they should be getting with these majorly crooked and sneaky do nothing NYC elected officials, the majority who are Democrats (in name only). When our media outlets have been majorly corrupted, slanted, telling lies (like the Queens Courier recently on Crappy) and just making it up (FOX, which began the whole media slant), what is left in this so-called Democracy.
KUDOS to Robert LoScalzo.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure,” Jefferson
Kudos to you, Robert LoScalzo, for reading the Riot Act to such an arrogant, cowardly, entitled, drunk with power hustler like Melinda Katz, who should really be in jail right now for her flagrant abuse of power, dishonesty, disloyalty to her subjects, and dereliction of public duty (not to mention her profligate, wanton waste and endless cover-ups)!
Now, if memory serves, you were the same guy who tried to hold Borough Hall accountable when that ignorant West Indian hack, Helen Marshall, evicted (actually robbed!), the statue that was aptly named, 'Triumph of Civic Virtue from the now blighted Kew Gardens Plaza (which ended up costing taxpayers' several hundred thousand dollars in 2012), that was exacerbated ONLY by Katz's OWN incredible arrogance, when she ignored public referendum by FOISTING Marshall's previously hatched plan that Katz willfully carried over into her own dysfunctional administration--and, the public be damned!
Now, this Queens monarch (and empowered idiot), just spent another $920,000 in May, after awarding a fat contract to some city payroll relative to destroy or modify the remnants of the statue's fountain base (that used to be filled with daily waterworks), with a planted ruin (ostensibly to beautify the vacant plaza space that THEY THEMSELVES blighted, ironically after they dumped a monument like Civic Virtue in Green-Wood Cemetery--which now only looks awkward and vacant without its solid platform base and fountain, that once provided prominence and grandeur), that no one ever said that they wanted, much less was ever asked or voted on by Community Board 9 (that other worthless patronage mill of passive aggressive idiots!), and THIS IS STILL LEGAL?
Worse, the real reason for the statue's heist was to dedicate and adorn the now gated plaza with a memorial for the women of Queens politics (Katz and Koslowitz included), which also falls into the unwelcome and unwanted category! But, hey--THIS IS NEO-FASCISM, not a democracy! Who cares what We the People want, right?
Finally, if ever there were two predatory, criminal sociopaths who belong in Federal lockup for life, then it would be Mayor 'Big Bird' de Blasio and our own resident, Forest Hills lurking hustler-BP, for inflicting their random crimes against humanity, or as I like to correctly call it: CRIMES WITHOUT CRIMINALS!
Hey, PREEEEEEEEEET--Hurry up and get thee to City Hall and Queens Borough Hall--need you right now--like never before!
Bravo, Robert!
Expose those crooks!
Re Anon#1, welcome back Richard.
Robert is my hero.
>This is in light of the absolute frightening story of one of our city lawyers claiming in court that the NYPD can arrest anyone that inquires about a protest or speaks to actual protesters present at one, including celebrity reporters.
The NYPD can arrest anyone they want, and make up a reason afterwards.
Still, this is the first I've heard this claim specifically . Link to said story?
I believe it's this.
And she had her hands all over the approval process for hotels to build in Queens. She worked at a law firm whose main business is to speed the process of land development in Queens. Oh, and she was and is chair of land use and development as Councilmember and currently as Boro pres. Connect the dots people! Preet...we need you to investigate her conflicts of interest before Queens has its last flush.
As long as there is openly practiced corruption perpetuated by Melinda Katz in Borough Hall (and monarchy rule), then nothing will change in Queens County, much less anywhere else throughout city and state government in New York.
It's like Donald Manes (and his party-machine system) never left--but, only getting worse by the hour!
gets chauffeured from one photo op to the next
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