That’s why it’s important to hire professional city staff. For requeats that are important or reasonable, we find a way to do it. And even with the one from my example, my first reaction wasn’t “No,” but for me to clarify why the request was so difficult and for me to suggest how they might revise their request in a manner that would both be easier to provide, but also would provide more useful information.
I keep incredibly detailed records, which is why we’ve won every court case that’s come up since I took over these duties. So I know how to search the data and parse out what is actually useful.