Chicago Tribune Sues City Hall Over Use of Private Emails

The use of private emails and text messages at Chicago City Hall — and the city’s failure to release records of their use to reporters — has led to a lawsuit by the Chicago Tribune.

The news company filed the suit Thursday, accusing Mayor Rahm Emanuel of violating state open records laws. According to the Tribune:

The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, asks a judge to order the mayor to comply with a state Freedom of Information Act request from the Tribune and produce the documents. The lawsuit also seeks to have Emanuel declared in violation of the Illinois Local Records Act for failing to preserve emails and texts he sent or received while doing city business.

The lawsuit claims that, in recent years, Freedom of Information Act requests from the Tribune to the mayor’s office “have been met with a pattern of non-compliance, partial compliance, delay and obfuscation.” Emanuel’s use of private phones and personal email, the lawsuit alleges, allows the mayor to do the public’s business without scrutiny and contributes to a “lack of transparency.”

The lawsuit is the second the news organization has filed against the Emanuel administration in recent months. In June, the Tribune sued the mayor’s office over its refusal to produce some email chains related to a multimillion-dollar no-bid Chicago Public Schools contract now at the center of a federal criminal investigation.

more via the Chicago Tribune