Proof that only the lawyers make the big bucks when litigation starts.
Detroit’s building authority and land bank have turned over more than 250,000 pages of emails and attachments to the federal authorities conducting a criminal investigation into Detroit’s demolition program, a Freedom of Information Act request reveals.
The Detroit Land Bank Authority and Detroit Building Authority, which oversee the city’s federally funded demolition programs, received subpoenas in May from the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program seeking documents from more than two dozen employees. The requests pertained to federally funded demolition contracts and numerous contractors.
The land bank and building authority are being looked at in the federal probe, one of several ongoing federal, state and local reviews of the program that’s taken down nearly 11,000 blighted properties since spring of 2014.
In response to The Detroit News’ request for the documents turned over under the subpoenas, the FOIA response notes 54,716 emails and 31,409 attachments were turned over. The land bank would fulfill the request at a cost of $47,075. And, it would take at least 538 business days for staff to separate exempt from non-exempt information, the Wednesday FOIA response notes.
On Thursday, Craig Fahle, a spokesman for the land bank, reiterated the authority’s cooperation with the probe.
“Since the beginning of this investigation, the Detroit land bank has pledged its full cooperation and to be fully transparent with the investigation,” he said. “Giving over records is a part of that. This is what cooperation looks like and we will continue to cooperate.”
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