GUILDERLAND — The Guilderland Industrial Development Agency is changing the way it responds to Freedom of Information Law inquiries after a frequent critic of town government, Robyn Gray, reprimanded the board for having the same person serve two conflicting roles.

Donald Csaposs, the chief executive officer of Guilderland’s IDA, had been both its FOIL officer, receiving requests for information, and its FOIL appeals officer, deciding if a records denial should be upheld or overturned.

Going forward, the board’s lawyer will serve as the appeals officer.

Gray on June 24 scolded board members over how her May FOIL application for a document discussed in an open April meeting was handled. 

Gray chairs the Guilderland Coalition For Responsible Growth and sought to burnish her good-government bona fides by also noting that she serves on the board of directors of the New York Coalition for Open Government, a not-for-profit that advocates for government transparency.

Gray’s complaint

Gray recounted that, on April 29, agency counsel Christopher Canada provided the IDA board with a single-page document that did not appear on that night’s agenda, nor was it available online at the time the meeting took place.

“I filed a full request back in I believe it was May, requesting a specific document that Mr. Canada handed out at the April 29 meeting ….,” Gray said. “It was not on the agenda. It was not anywhere.”

When she filed for the document, Gray said, Csaposs, “who serves a dual role as the agency records officer and the FOIL officer,” which isn’t allowed by law, responded that, “for a single piece of paper, I would get a response before May 30. At that time, it would be determined whether my response would be answered or not — for a single piece of paper.

New York State Public Officers Law mandates that agencies provide written approval or denial responses to FOIL requests within five business days. Once acknowledged, agencies generally have 20 business days to process requests, but may extend this timeframe due to reasonable  factors like volume or complexity, provided the agency notifies the requestor with a “date certain” and reasons for the delay.

The document requested by Gray was a printout from the website for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development showing the median family income of residents in the Albany Metropolitan Statistical Area — which includes Albany, Columbia, Greene, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, and Schoharie counties — was approximately $116,000 per year. The document was related to an ongoing discussion the IDA is having about subsidizing housing projects whose tenants have an income above the federal poverty level, but still struggle to pay rent.

For his part, Canada told Gray, “The piece of paper that you’re referring to, I brought that not thinking after a long day; it was related to our discussion of workforce housing. Right?”

Canada said, “I think it was a synopsis of area median income that I got from a HUD website. It certainly wasn’t a smoking gun or something I was trying to conceal. I just honestly brought it to be helpful to the IDA board members.”

As for Csaposs, Gray stood firm that the IDA chief should not be acting as jury and judge for FOIL applications. As Gray spoke, she was calmly and repeatedly reminded that her remarks were taking place during the open-comment portion of the meeting, when the public is allowed to offer its opinion on matters before the board, not engage its members in debate. 

“An oversight”

The law is rather unambiguous on this point, stating that “the records access officer shall not be the appeals officer”; however the same section of statute  begins, “The governing body of a public corporation or the head, chief executive or governing body of other agencies shall determine appeals or shall designate a person or body to hear appeals regarding denial of access to records under the Freedom of Information Law.” 

Csaposs not only heads the IDA, he is its only employee. 

After Gray spoke, Csaposs told board members, “Interestingly enough, I had to report on becoming aware of the issue relative to my stated status as the FOIL officer and FOIL appeal officer.”

Csaposs said the issue was “due to an oversight in the formulation of our good housekeeping resolution,” the annual proclamation adopted by the IDA board stating its purpose and authority. “And I wanted to bring that to the board's attention and make the suggestion that I be separated from either the duty of being the FOIL officer or being the FOIL appeal officer, and I was going to request input from counsel as to which would be the more appropriate.”

Canada told board members that a number of attorneys from his firm, Hodgson and Russ, also act as appeals officers for the municipalities they represent, including the city of Albany. 

The board felt comfortable with the suggestion that Canada become the IDA’s appeals officer and asked him to come up with a policy to handle the situation.

This year, Csaposs was named as both records request and appeals officer in the IDA’s January housekeeping resolution. Last year, Chairwoman Shelly Johnston was named requests officer, while Csaposs was appointed to deal with the appeals denial process. In 2022, Csaposs had once again been named to both positions. But prior to 2022, it appears that the IDA’s annual resolution was adopted with no request or appeals officer named.

Cyber sleuthing

Also on June 24, Gray sought to point out a bit of underhandedness associated with making her FOIL request available to the public. 

She recounted for the board how she received documents associated with two meetings for which she had made requests.

“So, I’m going through it,” Gray said. “And what do I find on the last page of the agenda for April 29? The piece of paper that was handed out at the meeting by Mr. Canada on April 29.”

Gray said to herself, “Wait a minute, the date that I sent that FOIL in, I went online and I copied every single document that was on that agenda. That document was not there.”

Gray did a little cyber sleuthing and was able to determine that the PDF, or portable document format, was added to the April 29 agenda long after the meeting took place. 

By examining the PDF’s metadata, Gray determined it was inserted into the online agenda two weeks after the meeting had taken place.

She said, “So we have a problem where a document that should have been added to the agenda prior to that meeting was not and it was added afterwards, which is a problem because that violates the Open Meetings Law.”

Gray concluded her contentious comments by querying Johnston about when she was “going to get some sort of a response” to her violations’ claims. Johnson responded that she’d have “to review the information that’s been provided” and added, “I can’t speak to that before I know exactly what I am committing to.”

Gray interjected, “I’m not asking you to commit to anything; I’m just asking if you’re going to respond,” which received a quick retort from Csaposs that Gray was participating in a “public-comment period.”

“It’s not a question-and-answer session,” said Csaposs, after which Johnston thanked Gray for speaking.