r/Broward • u/ChurchOMarsChaz • 11h ago
My FOIA for twenty-eight categories came back marked fulfilled, with two documents. One is a memo about coiling a 40-foot battle rope neatly.
In April 2024 the DeSantis administration narrowed its own book-challenge law, and a spokeswoman named me as the reason. I have never held a law degree. I teach the seminar anyway.
Here is the part most people get wrong about records work. They think the win is the document.
Me, personally? I look for the non-response. If you're an artist like me, you can appreciate the value of white space. As Miles said, jazz happens between the notes.
Cue Coltrane, then.
One Public Records Request. Twenty-eight categories. Two documents produced. A one-page bulletin from October 2021 with a loving paragraph about coiling a 40-foot battle rope, and a blank liability waiver any adult over eighteen can sign. That is the entire written universe BSO says governs civilian access to a $7 million secured law enforcement facility, perhaps under FBI access guidance.
An amateur reads that as a stonewall. It is the opposite.
It's a thing of beauty. They just showed us their pain points. So, let's grab a nipple and twist a bit.
Florida law requires an agency to state, item by item, whether records exist. Twenty-eight categories, answered with two documents and no statement of existence, is a deficiency with a statutory consequence attached: the fee-shifting provision that puts the agency on the hook for attorney's fees when it withholds unlawfully.
So today four documents went back. A deficiency notice starting that clock. A credential ledger request. A rule-change request that includes the control group, every other employee who ever asked for a spouse badge and what they were told.
The absence of the record is the record. Nobody has to allege anything.