On January 19, 2024, the city fired their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) director, attorney Connie Clay, causing Clay to file a whopping $250,000 lawsuit against the city for improper firing.
Clay alleges that, repeatedly during her stint as FOIA officer, she alerted Richmond officials they were violating FOIA laws. Under those regulations, citizens have a right to file a request for information from the city government, with the government required to either respond within five business days or request a seven-day extension.
But Clay says those requests were often delayed and sometimes ignored altogether, despite her warnings that such actions could result in lawsuits—which, of course, they did.
“You pay the salaries of everyone in City Hall, from the janitor on up to the mayor. You pay their salaries and they should report to you.”
“I sounded the alarm for several months, and no one listened, and I was silenced and then fired,” Clay said. “It’s just such a huge disappointment that the bureaucrats in City Hall do not want to follow the law. And if I don’t say something, who will?”
FOIA exists to give citizens a way of discovering exactly what their government is up to, often behind closed doors. If the government refuses to obey FOIA regulations, the first question is: What are they trying to hide?
But, remarkably, the city attorneys have asked the court to block Clay from making FOIA requests for information pertaining to her case.
“Plaintiff has submitted FOIA requests seeking the City of Richmond’s legal invoices from its outside counsel, Ogletree Deakins, and has already disseminated these materials to the press,” the city’s lawyers stated, seeking an “enhanced protective order” against Clay.
Because those invoices contain information about the city’s “litigation strategy,” the government’s attorneys argue, Clay’s use of FOIA is an attempt to “gain improper insight into the city’s case strategy and secure an unfair tactical advantage.”
“This apparent strategy of requesting documents via FOIA, releasing them to the press and feigning ignorance as to their impact is neither appropriate nor constructive,” they wrote.
So the city wants the former FOIA officer to be banned from making FOIA requests.
On January 10, 2024, when Clay was still the city’s FOIA officer, a CBS 6 reporter submitted a FOIA request. Clay was told by her then boss, city spokesperson Petula Burks, that Clay had to forward the request to the city’s finance director, Sheila White, so that documents could be redacted, thereby delaying the response. Clay claims she refused to do so.
On January 17, Clay emailed Burks warning, “I will not misstate facts for you, Sheila White, the City of Richmond or anyone else.”
Two days later, Clay was fired.
As of February 27, the city had still not responded to the reporter’s FOIA request on this matter.
“If they fail to respond within those first five days, or if they get to the end of that extension period and they still haven’t responded, technically that is a violation of FOIA,” said Megan Rhyne, director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. “What this exchange [from Clay] shows me is how that process can get gummed up by bureaucracy. When the FOIA officers have to ask multiple people to participate and weigh in [on requests received], and they’re dependent on them and they don’t have the authority to answer questions or fulfill requests or what have you, it really hamstrings them.”
In other words, government staff charged with enforcing the law by responding to FOIA requests within a specific time frame can be put in a position where they are violating the law.
As an attorney, that caused concerns for Clay.
“There were many instances where I was asked to withhold information that should have been released or to sit on records that should have been released,” she said. She maintains that she was fired because of her “whistleblowing about the city’s ongoing FOIA violations and lack of transparency” and as “retaliation for reporting and refusing to engage in illegal and unethical activities in violation of FOIA.”
Her lawsuit also includes her former boss, Petula Burks, as a defendant who, Clay said, directed her to not answer FOIA requests.
Asked why the city declined to release FOIA-requested information, Clay said, “I had a conversation with Petula at one point and she said, ‘I just don’t want the city to look stupid.’ And I remember thinking, ‘Well, the city needs to stop doing stupid things.’”
Richmond taxpayers may feel the same when they realize that the city has, thus far, wasted over $234,000 of taxpayer money defending against Clay’s lawsuit.
When the city attempted to have the case dismissed, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Claire Cardwell refused, setting a September jury trial date. A trial means, of course, that the City of Richmond’s legal fees are bound to increase.
“There is a law on the books that says citizens, everyone, has a right to know what their government is doing in their name,” Rhyne said, “so when this law is repeatedly ignored or repeatedly violated or repeatedly dismissed as being cumbersome and just in the way, an obstacle to other things, that’s telling the public that they are an impediment.”
Clay details many instances when she was instructed to either delay or refuse to answer FOIA requests, including requests pertaining to 2021 and 2023 casino proposals, the mayor’s salary and how the city’s finance department handles meals tax.
“Democracy depends exclusively on the informedness of the individual citizen,” Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote.
Clay obviously agrees, stating what she hopes will be the outcome of her lawsuit for everyday citizens: “You pay the salaries of everyone in City Hall, from the janitor on up to the mayor. You pay their salaries and they should report to you.… I hope they will realize that you can fight City Hall, that you can stand up for your rights, that you must stand up for your rights.”
