Dear Ms. True:
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About Jim Williams’s role as mayoral press secretary: As press secretary, Jim Williams is responsible for keeping the lines of communication open between the press and the Daley administration. A respected member of the mayor’s “inner circle” of advisors, he shares and weighs input from other city officials on critical press matters. But contrary to the assertions of Tumia Romero, a former employee whose disputes with colleagues hastened her departure, final decisions on press issues are made by Jim and the mayor–period.
About community access to information: The article implied that the mayor’s press office controls (or seeks to control) the dissemination of information to community groups. That assumption is incorrect. The press office oversees press, not community outreach. Had your reporter done a little research at City Hall, he would have discovered some very effective avenues for outreach and communication between city government and the people we serve.
About Freedom of Information requests: The city of Chicago receives between 16,000 and 21,000 requests each year under the Freedom of Information Act. Every effort is made to respond to them in a timely manner, though we occasionally deny requests for information that is exempt from the law, such as confidential data from employee personnel files and internal memos on the formulation of policy. Although the act allows for court appeals when information is denied, less than half a dozen lawsuits have been filed on those grounds since Mayor Daley took office six years ago.
