Groups Urge City Council to Pass Landmark NYC FOIL Bill
September 11, 2025
Speaker Adrienne Adams
Chair Jennifer Gutiérrez, Committee on Technology
Dear Speaker Adams and Chair Gutiérrez,
We write to urge you to pass Intro 1235 of 2025 this fall before the end of the Council term. This landmark legislation will ensure that the public can see how many Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests City agencies are receiving and how long it’s taking them to respond. This bill is cosponsored by half of City Councilmembers (25 of 50 in office), and supported by 13 watchdog and media organizations.
There are numerous news stories and government reports about how City agencies routinely violate the Freedom of Information Law by taking months, sometimes years, to respond to public records requests. Reinvent Albany’s recent report, “NYC Government Flouting Freedom of Information Law,” found that 16% of FOIL requests were still open a year later, and a number of agencies have huge backlogs of requests that remain open for years, such as the NYPD, Department of Education, and Mayor’s Office.
Intro 1235 will illuminate the severity of the problem and spur reforms by requiring all agencies to report basic information like how many requests they’re receiving, how long it has taken to respond, the status of requests, and much more. Crucially, the legislation requires that public records that are released through FOIL be published online, eliminating the need for duplicative requests.
NYC’s OpenRecords system was a big step forward when it was activated in 2016, but not all agencies use it, leaving the public in the dark about their performance and allowing laggardly agencies to avoid transparency and accountability. Passing this legislation will help the City and the public determine which agencies are falling behind and what can be done to help them catch up.
Sincerely,
Reinvent Albany
Citizens Union
Common Cause/NY
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Legal Aid Society
League of Women Voters of the City of New York
New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU)
New York Coalition for Open Government
New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG)
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.)