Community College Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation, Failed to Utterly Refute the Allegation that It Was a Public Entity Subject to FOIL Requests
After petitioners’ Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for documents was denied by the Nassau County Community College Foundation (Foundation), petitioners brought an Article 78 proceeding to compel production. The Foundation is a not-for-profit-corporation formed to support the community college. The Foundation argued that it was not a public agency and therefore was not subject to FOIL requests. Supreme Court dismissed the petition. The Second Department reversed, finding that the documents submitted by the Foundation did not utterly refute the allegation that the Foundation had the attributes of a public entity. The Second Department noted that public agencies subject to FOIL include “any state or municipal department, board, bureau, division, commission, committee, public authority, public corporation, council, office or other governmental entity performing a governmental or proprietary function for the state or any one or more municipalities thereof, except the judiciary or the state legislature” … .
FOIL “was enacted to promote open government and public accountability’ and imposes a broad duty on government to make its records available to the public'” … . All “public agencies” are subject to FOIL … . An “agency” is “any state or municipal department, board, bureau, division, commission, committee, public authority, public corporation, council, office or other governmental entity performing a governmental or proprietary function for the state or any one or more municipalities thereof, except the judiciary or the state legislature” … .Matter of Nassau Community Coll. Fedn. of Teachers, Local 3150 v Nassau Community Coll., 2015 NY Slip Op 02972, 2nd Dept 4-8-15