Why won’t City Hall tell us what properties are red-tagged?

City Pulse is in an arm-wrestling match with the city of Lansing over public information.

Back in April, I asked for a “current” list of red-tagged properties. The fodder well was running dry for our “Eyesore of the Week” feature, and properties the city has tagged as unsafe are often eyesores.

My Freedom of Information Act request was denied because there was no “current” list. Instead, I was offered the latest list, which was generated in January.

If the Schor administration has its way, it will be the last red-tagged properties’ list ever produced.

Why?

I was given two reasons.

One was that the list maker had retired.

The implication here is that making a red-tag list is a lost art. However, it was not exactly being chiseled in stone. The information is all in a database. My guess is someone could figure it out.

The other reason the city gave me was that homeless people might move into red-tagged properties if the list were published.

Now, I’m not going to argue that would never happen. In fact, just two days ago, a reader called me to ask for an “Eyesore” on a hitherto vacant house that she thinks a squatter is occupying.

But I will argue that the public’s right to know supersedes this concern.

The city doesn’t agree. Last month, I resubmitted my FOIA, this time acknowledging no “current” list existed and asking the city to create one.

The city responded within five business days, as it is required to do. Its response was to inform me it was taking 10 more business days, as it is allowed to do. I’m confident it almost always gives that answer, no matter the question. After all, what’s the rush? It’s only citizens seeking public information.

The response said I would have an answer Aug. 5.

On Aug. 7, my answer arrived, but only after I posted an online story about how I hadn’t received an answer.

The answer was … that my request was denied because no such list existed. Surprise.

Actually, I was surprised. I had told the Mayor’s Office that if we could skip the FOIA rigamarole, I would give my word not to publish the list. I just wanted it as a source for “Eyesore.”

 I thought some common sense might prevail, but the Schor administration seems determined to deny the public its right to know, even when City Pulse offered a compromise.

Why this adamancy?

Let me hearken back to when Bob Johnson ran the Economic Development Department under Mayor Virg Bernero. Our “Eyesore” feature drove Johnson up the wall because he saw it as casting a bad light on the city.  I look at “Eyesore” as trying to put pressure on property owners to fix up their properties. Maybe the Schor administration has a Bob Johnson complex.

Or maybe the Economic Development Department doesn’t want attention called to how it handles red-tagged properties. Maybe the process needs a spotlight on it. Maybe the red-tagged list is getting longer.

Maybe the department is not as progressive and aggressive as it should be.

After all, the city just took three years to require landlords to pay for housing for residents who are dispossessed because of red-tagging. Three years! And, by the way, landlords are only on the hook for $2,250. Given that some properties have been red-tagged for years, landlords got off cheap in that deal.

Maybe City Hall is not pushing hard enough for tenant rights, starting at the top. Maybe, given the city’s housing shortage, finding out what the administration is doing about red-tagged properties needs a closer look.

So does how the city deals with FOIA requests. Can the city really believe that the public’s right to know is limited to what is already on a piece of paper, as opposed to what is easily accessible in its database — something it used to produce, no less? Hello 21st century.

My appeal is in the works. Stay tuned.

(Berl Schwartz is editor and publisher of City Pulse.)