Freedom of Information needs to earn its name

On June 12, I filed a Freedom of Information request with the City of Edmonton as part of a story I'm working on. 

Under the Act, which came into force in 1995, the city has 30 days to respond to a Freedom of Information request. The city did this – only to tell me there was going to be a delay for an unspecified period. The staff that oversee these requests to the city have been mildly pushing to find a way to get me the public information I have requested. They have suggested ways to streamline the language of my request and reduce the people identified in it in order to shrink the amount that's caught in the inevitable net. They have been helpful, if requiring me to keep checking in on something that, ostensibly, they're supposed to be getting to me on a deadline. 

Flickr/IQRemix 

Still, none of this has resulted in documents in my hands or even a firm date of when I can expect my information request to be honoured. This means today, August 23, is 71 days since the request was filed and 41 days beyond the timelines the Act spells out as its target response times.

It's a convoluted and incredibly time-consuming process to do much about this, like file a complaint. And given the discussion about Freedom of Information with the city, it's something we need to discuss fulsomely.  

Ep. 01 – Elevating Edmonton: The launch of a podcast about architecture in Edmonton

The first episode of Elevating Edmonton is here.

In our first round-table talk about architecture in our fair city, not-at-all experts Dan Rose, Dave Sutherland, Tim Schneider and me, Tim Querengesser, join actual architect Shafraaz Kaba to discuss Edmonton identity, proposals such as Manchester Square and The Grand, old hits like Peter Hemingway's pool and the CN Tower, and ongoing issues, like our constant identity crisis, our frontier thinking and our lack of an architecture school. Some coffee is sipped in the background; it may have contained Baileys.  

Credits:
 
Music: Komiku - Mall
From the Free Music Archive
Licence: CC

Photo: Flickr/eng1ne

Unsafe crosswalks have city talking about legal implications: FOIP

The City of Edmonton is discussing potential legal implications connected to unsafe crosswalks, a recent Freedom of Information request I have received reveals. 

After filing the request in June and receiving it today, I am able to report that 59 pages of documents the public is not allowed to see – because they are classified as privileged information – exist within City of Edmonton administration.

These documents were found after I requested the following through Freedom of Information: "Records of discussions between Transportation Officials and Legal Counsel regarding potential legal liability to the City of Edmonton as a result of documented inadequacies, safety deficiencies and lacking safety designs in crosswalks."

For context, in April, City of Edmonton administration shared a report to city council that showed 659 dangerous crosswalks across the city. The report also detailed how fixes for these crosswalks would cost $58 million.

Many noted at the time that our current pace upgrading these crosswalks – we spend roughly $2 million annually on crosswalk upgrades – would mean Edmonton will take 29 years to make these crosswalks adequately safe. Some questioned whether this situation, where the city has admitted unsafe condition for pedestrian infrastructure, exposed the City of Edmonton to legal liability in the event of a pedestrian being hurt or killed in one of these crosswalks.

The conversation at the time was amplified by the death, earlier in April, of 16-year-old Chloe Wiwchar, who a driver hit and killed as she walked in a crosswalk with signaled safety features on Kingsway. 

The questions about legal liability are natural because other cities are facing them and even paying for them. Because evidence from multiple jurisdictions shows that drivers who hit and injure or kill pedestrians rarely face serious charges, many have turned to the civil courts. Recently, California courts ruled that pedestrians injured in crosswalks can sue cities in civil courts, based on cities having an obligation to having safe property. In other states, that's already happening. In Missouri, a couple injured while crossing a street in an area identified by Jefferson City officials as dangerous is suing for $2.25 million. In Hawaii, a man hit by a driver while in a crosswalk recently won a suit and received more than $11 million in damages.

The City of Edmonton claims all 59 pages generated with my information request are privileged information (essentially, discussions between lawyers and clients) and therefore I and anyone else can't see them. To be crystal clear, that means there is only evidence of documents, but no evidence that the city is concerned about this situation or facing any potential lawsuits or doing anything other than simply talking about it. 

Flickr/Rob