City Violated FOIA By Withholding Harley Clarke Demo Donations

EVANSTON, IL — Attorneys for the city improperly denied at least five public records requests for information about donors to last year's effort to demolish the Harley Clarke mansion, according to the Illinois Attorney General's Office.

Evanston has not "not sustained its burden of demonstrating by clear and convincing evidence" that amounts of donations collected by the city in order to fund the demolition of a city-owned building, according to a determination published Thursday in response to consolidated requests for review by Patch and Evanston resident Nancy Sreenan.

The public interest in the disclosure of the amounts of money donated outweighed any privacy rights of the donors, whose names were already published by the city in accordance with the last year's memorandum of understanding with the Evanston Lighthouse Dunes citizen group, the non-binding determination found.

The Aug. 27, 2018, agreement included a clause that called for the Dunes group to provide a list of donors that "can be published by the City," the determination pointed out.

"Notably, the MOU does not contain any language indicating that the amount each individual donated would be kept confidential," wrote Chris Boggs, the supervising attorney of the attorney general's public access bureau.

While Evanston's attorneys maintained the disclosure of donation amounts would be an unreasonable invasion of privacy, the city did post a list of donors online. The list included multiple non-profit groups which do not have the same legal privacy protections as individuals.

"Further disclosure of individual donations is an infringement of the privacy rights of the donors' financial position to donate a small or large amount of money," wrote Assistant City Attorney Alex Ruggie. "The City found that the donation amounts are personal in nature, disclosure of which is objectionable to a reasonable person."

But, after conducting its own balancing act of the public interest versus the privacy rights of donors to the effort, the attorney general's office found insufficient privacy interests to withhold the information.

"Indeed, the public interest regarding the funds received by the City for the demolition project is significant," Boggs wrote.

"This office recognizes that the donors have some privacy interest in the amounts they chose to donate, the public's interest in records concerning the City's receipt of funds for the demolition project outweighs that minimal privacy interest."

The attorney general's office asked city officials to provide the records to Sreenan and Evanston Patch. On Aug. 20, the law department provided records showing 22 deposits totaling less than $300,000 of the nearly $402,000 in donations it reported receiving.

Read full determination:

Read more:

• Evanston Aldermen Decide To Drop Harley Clarke Demolition Appeal
• Harley Clarke Referendum Cleared To Appear On November Ballot
• Harley Clarke Mansion Demolition Donation Deal Signed
• Aldermen Approve Amended Harley Clarke Demolition Agreement
• Harley Clarke Demolition Donation Deal Comes Before Council
• Council Approves Harley Clarke Demolition Negotiations
• City Council To Consider Offer To Demolish Harley Clarke Mansion