HOLLY — Citing growing demand for government transparency, the Village of Holly announced Wednesday the launch of Holly FOIA, a new subscription service that automatically sends residents public records they were probably going to request anyway. Officials said the program was created after reviewing years of FOIA activity and concluding that, in many cases, staff could save time by simply sending certain residents documents as they are created. “If two department heads exchange emails about a drainage easement at 10:14 a.m., there’s really no reason to pretend nobody is going to want them by Thursday,” said Village Records Coordinator Gerald Pritchard. At launch, Holly FOIA will offer two tiers:
- Holly FOIA Basic includes agendas, minutes, ordinances, contracts and financial reports
- Holly FOIA Pro adds employee emails, draft documents, text messages, attachments, metadata and records generated while discussing other records Early testing of Pro produced more than 3,000 pages in four days, including nine versions of a community-event flyer, 41 emails concerning an invoice discrepancy and an extended correspondence over whether Village Hall needed additional paper towels. No wrongdoing was discovered in the paper towel correspondence. Officials said the program has already reduced the amount of time spent processing requests, though some savings were lost after subscribers began asking what employees actually meant by words like “fine,” “noted” and “per my last email.” The Village is now developing Holly FOIA+, which would provide access not only to public records but also the thoughts, intentions and unspoken motivations of the employees who created them. Implementation has been delayed while the Village Attorney determines whether thinking “oh, for Christ’s sake” while opening an email constitutes a public record.