Request 007 — 1/7/2026

Nothing quite like calling the cops over your neighbor’s lawn!

Hey hey, happy Wednesday, welcome to foiaday.

It’s day seven, and I’ve requested a boatload of documents. Nothing. Back. Yet.

I hope by next week we’ll start to see some returns! I’m really excited for some of these documents to start coming back in. My DocumentCloud project for this is lonely and empty and sad!

If there's a coworker or friend you think would benefit from this newsletter, feel free to forward it to them! If they subscribe, they'll also get a link to a template for the tracker I like to use to keep tabs on requests I've filed.

I’m going to keep this kind of short: we’re requesting for code enforcement records. 

Code enforcement is an important job. It keeps people safe! It makes sure we live in homes that are up to spec and won’t collapse/catch on fire/be otherwise deadly. 

But like pretty much everything, it can be weaponized, and I’m curious if there’ll be any Hatfield/McCoy-esque spats that might show in some calls to code enforcement. And where better to start than Naperville?

Okay, okay. Naperville is the constant, evergreen butt to many Chicago jokes (to the extent that Raygun even made a shirt about it!), though it’s a good sample city for this request: it’s the third largest city in the state, with many, many homeowners compared to renters. 

I’m very curious to see how the combination of a large population, affluence and single family homes translates to code enforcement calls.

So let’s jump in and request some records from the city of Naperville. Here’s what language I’m using:

Copies of the following documents:

- The current, or most recent, records retention schedule for the city. This is a document that lists out the types and descriptions of records kept by the city, and is typically filed with the Illinois State Archives. Please send this in a .pdf format if possible.

- A list, log, or data sufficient to show all complaints called in to the city of Naperville’s Code Enforcement Division between 1/1/2023 and present (1/7/2026, or whenever this request is processed). Please include the date of the complaint, a description of the complaint, the address of the complaint (and complainant if available) and the outcome of the complaint, including any enforcement efforts, including fines or warnings. If at all possible, please release the document in a machine-readable format, like a .csv, .xlsx, or database file.

Naperville’s Code Enforcement Division is housed within the engineering and development departments of the city, not within the police department, it seems. I did request for the enforcement efforts caused by the complaint, which may not exist in the records themselves.

I’m mostly working off my knowledge of Chicago’s 311 reporting system, which is pretty standardized. I don’t actually know how Naperville stores its calls that it receives for code enforcement, so my request is more of a fishing expedition. If I have to narrow it, or retool it, I’ll be sure to update you guys.

So: a radical transparency moment. Some of the requests I’ve filed have to be re-filed, either because they never sent (thank you, faulty Appscript rig), or because they went to the wrong places, or they were formatted incorrectly. That said, I’m going to resend a batch tomorrow, which will push back some of the expected due dates.

But something curiouser than that: today, I heard back from the Illinois State Police, and they gave me a very interesting sort-of denial? They cited a part of the statute that I’ve literally never even glanced at before but is, in fact, real. This is what they sent:

Request 003 - CPD, ISP, CCSO AI chatbot usage

Good morning,

Pursuant to  5 ILCS 140/3(c), the entirety of your FOIA request must appear within the body of your e-mail. ISP’s FOIA Unit will not begin processing your request until your FOIA request complies with this section of the law.

Respectfully,

Freedom of Information Office
Office of the Director
Illinois State Police
801 South Seventh Street, Suite 1000-S
Springfield, Illinois 62703

Wait, what?

When I send FOIA requests, unless I’m forced into a portal, I typically write up the request in a PDF, then attach it to an email. It’s just the method and process I’ve followed for a while! But this is the first time I’ve encountered clause and subclause 3c, which says, and I kid you not:

But here’s the rub — it’s a brand new amendment to OMA and FOIA in Illinois. It went into effect just six days ago. Which is genuinely so tragic. Here’s the bill:

So, yeah, sure, fair enough, I guess. (Did I, in a pre-coffee moment, think they made it up? Oh, definitely.) 

Anyway. It doesn’t prevent or disallow the agency from processing the request like normal (they receive the request, and then open the probably pre-malware-scanned .pdf), but it could throw a wrench in the works if an agency is being a stickler with the new rules. Just a heads up, folks!

In all honesty, in my semi-educated opinion, it seems like it kind of contradicts the later part of the statute that says agencies cannot require requesters to conform to specific formats or templates for requests — eg, they can’t make you use a portal, and they can’t force you to fill out their specific forms on their sites. But I digress. We’ll start a tally for every denial/resubmit request I get based on this new part of the clause this year!

Times I was personally victimized by the 2026 Illinois FOIA/OMA statute update:

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I’m going to wrap this by saying that this was written before the events that occurred today in Minneapolis. It feels insane to publish this without any sort of acknowledgement of what happened today.

The Star Tribune has been doing incredible coverage of the killing of Renee Good  by ICE agents, in broad daylight, in her car, in front of her partner, in full sight of cameras and protestors, with seemingly no regard for the risk it posed to others or irreparable damage it would cause to her. There are eerie similarities to the killing of Silverio Villegas González here in Chicago a few months ago.

A GoFundMe has been making the rounds to support Good’s surviving wife and son; the link is here.

Take care, and see you all tomorrow.

Cam