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Highland Park legal assistant outlines FOIA duties and new online portal
Summary
A Highland Park legal assistant and FOIA coordinator described the city's public-records process, said staff route citizen complaints and property-damage claims to appropriate departments, and pointed residents to a new GovQA portal on the Highland Park website for submitting requests.
A Highland Park legal assistant and FOIA coordinator said the city has an online system for Freedom of Information Act requests and that staff also handle citizen complaints and property-damage claims.
The staff member, identified in the meeting only as a Highland Park legal assistant and FOIA coordinator, said, "My role at City Hall is a legal assistant and a FOIA coordinator." They told meeting attendees that their duties include processing public-records requests and routing complaints and damage claims "to the right department or attorney for review."
"We now have a system that is located on our Highland Park website where all of the citizens can go on our website," the staff member said, identifying the portal by name: "It's called govqa, and you could submit a request for whatever information, whatever records you wanna seek." The staff member said the portal is intended to streamline requests for records such as property-related information.
The staff member said they have worked in the legal field for about 20 years and cited personal ties to Highland Park as a reason for taking the job. They said they are "most proud of our FOIA system that has been, enacted" and that the system receives a large number of requests typical for municipal governments.
No formal actions or votes were recorded on the topic during this portion of the meeting. The remarks focused on explaining how residents can request records and how the city processes complaints and damage claims.
