__________________________________________Ask the DA
 

Can you send me information on fees for requesting FOIL records from your office? 

The Freedom of Information Law, effective January 1, 1978, provides New Yorkers with access to records which contain governmental decisions and policies which affect them.  The scope of this law is meant to include many state and government agencies, and the District Attorney’s Office is included among them.   The law provides access to existing records.  However, an agency is not required to create a record in response to a FOIL request where none exists. 

Due to the sensitive nature of much of the subject matter that is handled by my office, some records or portions thereof are exempted from this law.  For those records to which you are legally entitled, the fees are as follows:  A statutory photocopying fee of 25 cents per page will be assessed for each photocopied page sent to you. 

Furthermore, a reproduction fee of $5.00 per audiotape, $5.00 per CD and $7.00 per videotape will be assessed for each tape or CD sent to you. 

As president of a local housing development, I am concerned about youth hanging out during school hours in stairwells, lobbies and friends’ apartments until it is time for them to go home.  The police do not see them, so they get away with truancy.

How can this be stopped?

New York City police officers are permitted to investigate all complaints of disturbance, trespass, loitering, truancy and any other allegations of criminal activity in the public areas of NYC housing.  A common complaint made to police involves the buying and selling of drugs in public areas of apartment buildings.  My office has addressed this concern by teaming up with tenants, landlords and local police precincts to create the F-TAP program, which I will address in a future column.

If a person suspects that school age children (ages 6-17) are hiding out within dwellings – whether public housing or private homes – during school hours, he or she may call our Truancy Hotline at 718-250-2298 and a police officer will be sent out to the site to investigate.  Officers may knock on the door and inquire whether there is an adult present.  If no adults are present, they can then reach out to parents directly to verify the children’s stories.  Absent exigent circumstances or a warrant, NYPD is not permitted to force their way into a dwelling.

I applaud you for your concern, and I take this opportunity to remind everyone that we must all take collective responsibility for our community’s youth. A simple phone call on the part of a concerned neighbor can serve to set a child back on track, but it can also alert the authorities to a circumstance (a missing or abused child) that might otherwise have gone undetected.