FOIA Friday: Marijuana-friendly property records

👋 Welcome again to our weekly public data highlight. This week, we’re digging into town’s plan to promote properties to marijuana companies.

Why it issues: Property zoned for the hashish trade is scarce, driving up costs.

• In response, officers are creating a program to promote city-owned marijuana properties to longtime Detroit residents at a reduction.

What’s taking place: For perception into that program, we filed a public data request Might 13 for an inventory of city-owned properties zoned for hashish companies.

Between the strains: Michigan’s Freedom of Info Act offers public our bodies as much as 15 enterprise days to inform the requester whether or not or not the data might be made out there and at what charge, that are decreased for late responses.

• Two months later, town has not responded accordingly as a result of the request remains to be being processed.

💭 Joe’s thought bubble: These delays are more and more widespread, particularly after the pandemic spike in distant work. The general public is left with little recourse to get the knowledge legally out there to them.

What’s subsequent: State Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) tells Axios the Legislature wants to handle delays in FOIA response time.