The story behind the New York FOI

OK, folks. There's been a lot of chatter on the election trail over the past few days about the Freedom of Information request that revealed the mayor's trip to New York City to visit Gary Bettman. Larry Di Ianni says the mayor was being secretive and it shouldn't have taken an FOI for it to become public. The mayor says he would have fessed up to it if someone had asked him directly.

Since I was the one who filed that FOI, I thought I'd tell you my perspective - then you can judge the situation for yourselves.

It all started back in March when the city released information about councillors' expenses. As you can see in this report, all that was provided were the total amounts each councillor spent. It didn't give any breakdown of those expenses at all.

I asked the finance department if they could give me a more detailed breakdown of how much each councillor spent, which was provided. This list was slightly more detailed. It included the mayor's New York trip as a "business meeting," but didn't specify with whom. To be honest, this item didn't really stick out at the time. I figured he was attending a conference, which is very common for both the mayor and councillors.

Even though I had received more information about councillors' expenses, I still wasn't satisfied with the level of detail I was getting from the city. I was looking for really precise records of councillors' expenses - like itemized receipts for each purchase - and was told I would have to file an FOI for that level of detail. I did just that on March 31, asking for all records for expenses for the mayor, Dave Mitchell, Robert Pasuta, Russ Powers, and Terry Whitehead. I chose Whitehead and Powers because they had the highest expenses of all councillors. Pastua and Mitchell were included because I wanted to see how much they were charging the city for mileage. The mayor I threw in because -- well, because he's the mayor.

So, fast forward to May, when my FOI documents were ready. As I was glancing through the records, I saw that the mayor's trip to New York wasn't a conference at all - it was to visit Bettman. As you can imagine, my interest was immediately piqued. That day, I called the mayor's office and asked him about it. He was very cooperative and told me all about the trip.

Here's a little snippet of my story from that day: (I would link to it, but a lot of stories posted before the website redesign have vanished into the ether. If you want the full text, email me and I'll send it along).

Though details of the meeting only emerged through the Freedom of Information request, Eisenberger said he wasn't intending to keep it a secret.

"It's difficult to have fruitful and confidential relationship-building discussions with the media in tow, " he said. "There's no reason to be cute or quiet about it, but as I've said on many occasions, loose lips sink ships."

So there you have it. I did not ask the mayor specifically about the meeting before I filed the FOI, because the intent of that request wasn't to find the details of that meeting. It was one of those interesting tidbits that you don't expect, but are interested to know more about.

The mayor says he would have owned up to the New York meeting if he had been asked about it directly before the FOI was filed, and there's absolutely no reason to doubt that.

But I will say this -- the meeting with Bettman was in December, and by the time I approached the mayor about it, it was May. Though  Eisenberger says the meeting wasn't intended to be a secret, it definitely wasn't his choice for that information to become public. So in that sense, it did take an FOI for the mayor to talk publicly about that meeting.

What do you think?

Comments

[Ryan McGreal]

Here's a link to a cached copy of the original article:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZjpMaTdNkNQJ:www.thespec.com/printArticle/775739+%22Mayor+went+to+NYC+to+see+NHL%27s+Bettman%22&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-a

[Markalanwhittle]

If this statement is true, then he (Mayor Fred) must have instructed staff to say it since he claimed the trip as a business expense. Bingo.
--
His office said he was taking time off for personal reasons and wouldn't be available until later in the week.

[Albert]

"The Spectator attempted to reach the mayor "His office said he was taking time off for personal reasons and wouldn't be available until later in the week.

Eisenberger said that was "partly true" as his wife joined him in New York for a vacation day after the sit-down."

Emma, so why is the Spectator giving this man a pass. He even gets his office to tell 'partly true' stories. I think this stinks. The sooner Fred is gone the better.