$126 for Public Information on Alleged Theft

New Britain City Hall is charging $126 for public information requested by the New Britain Progressive concerning a former city administrator allegedly accused of theft.

The New Britain Progressive is seeking information that may be related to Zeena Tawfik who is the former head of community services under the administration of Republican Mayor Erin Stewart. According to a report in the New Britain Herald, Tawfik was arrested for allegedly embezzling $7,141.55 in grant moneys that were given to the city, “to fund substance abuse and bullying prevention programs within the city.”

The New Britain Progressive is seeking a copy of the arrest warrant reportedly issued for Tawfik and any police reports related to the former city administrator. In addition, the New Britain Progressive is seeking records of the financial transactions of the programs of the city’s community services during Tawfik’s employment with the city. Finally, the New Britain Progressive is seeking a copy of Tawfik’s personnel file and documents related to the process by which she was hired and received any promotions.

But the office of the city corporation counsel has said that it is charging $126.17 for requested records, an amount which is for only two of the three items of requested information. Stewart, herself, was carbon-copied on the message from the Corporation Counsel’s office.

For Tawfik’s personnel file and other related information requested, the city is charging $91.50, at 50 cents per page for 183 pages.

For city financial records related to city community services programs during Tawfik employment with the city, the city is charging $34.67, saying that it accounts for 50% of Director of Finance Jonathan Perugini’s, “hourly rate for the thirty minutes expended to comply with this portion of your request.”

The city claimed that Perugini, “was required to program and format the record of all financial transactions during Ms. Tawfik’s employment with Community Services.” The words “program and format” being used by the city in its claim is significant, because state statute normally does not allow for the charging of public information appearing in electronic form when all that is required to provide it is, “search or retrieval,” by public employees, but does allow charging when doing so requires, “formatting or programming functions.”

The city had previously rejected a request by the New Britain Progressive to waive the fees, apparently implying that the request for the information by the newspaper would not provide a benefit to the general welfare.

Before a change in the city ordinances approved during Stewart’s administration, charges for copies of pages of pubic information in this case would apparently not have been possible. In 2015 Stewart signed into law a repeal of provisions of city ordinances that, up until then, had allowed members of the public to obtain copies of public information without charge for up to 400 pages in a thirty day period.

The ordinance (local law) provisions repealed by Stewart’s signature would, if it were still on the books, appear to have required the city to provide the 183 pages to the New Britain Progressive without charge, if the Progressive requested the pages in increments of forty pages.

The charges being required by the city only account for two of the three items requested by the New Britain Progressive. In that third case, the city has not yet provided the information requested at all. The city claimed that, “The arrest warrant/police reports concerning Ms. Tawfik cannot be provided because the criminal case under Docket No. H15N-CR 19-0323630-S has been statutorily sealed by the Court.”

The December 3, 2019 New Britain Herald article on the alleged arrest quoted from the alleged arrest warrant and refers to the alleged warrant as a source. Yet that same alleged warrant was not provided to the New Britain Progressive in its public information request to the city.

The New Britain Progressive has informed the city that its request for the alleged arrest warrant stands, at such time as the city is not legally restrained from providing it.

Editor’s note: If you would like to help the New Britain Progressive meet the costs being charged to gain access to this public information and to otherwise provide the important reporting of news you will not find anywhere else, please make a contribution at the website here. The New Britain Progressive is an all-volunteer, not-for-profit newspaper that operates on a shoestring. Nobody involved in the New Britain Progressive or the New Britain Independent Newspaper, Inc. makes any money from it. Any contribution in any amount helps. Thank you.