FOIL Appeal Determination for 05-04-0A (Daniel J. Loewenstein)
November 7, 2005
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Assistant Commissioner
Office of Hearings and Mediation Services, 14th Floor
625 Broadway, Albany, New York 12233-1550
Phone: (518) 402-8537 FAX: (518) 402-9037
Website: www.dec.state.ny.us
November 7, 2005
Daniel J. Loewenstein, P.E., DEE
Vice President
Malcolm Pirnie, Inc.
43 British American Boulevard
Latham, New York 21110
Re: Freedom of Information Law Appeal No. 05-04-0A
Freedom of Information Request No. 05-581
Dear Mr. Loewenstein:
As you were previously advised, the law firm of Young, Sommer . . . LLC, on behalf of Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure of New York, PC ("Shaw"), had, pursuant to the New York State Freedom of Information Law ("FOIL"), submitted a request for, among other things, copies of the responses to the Request for Proposal for the Procurement of Standby Consulting Engineering Services for Investigation and Design, October 19, 2004 (Contract Nos. D004440-D004446) and to the Request for Proposal for the Procurement of Standby Consulting Engineering Services for Design and Construction, October 19, 2004 (Contract Nos. D004433-D004439) issued by the Department of Environmental Conservation ("Department").
Your company submitted responses to each Request for Proposal and requested that the Department consider those responses to be "business confidential" and "trade secrets." I have recently been advised by Department attorney Meta R. Murray that Shaw no longer wishes to pursue its request to inspect your company's responses to the Requests for Proposal. Accordingly, the Department's review of your company's responses to determine whether and to what extent the business confidential and trade secret exemptions apply has been discontinued.
We have advised the Department's Division of Environmental Remediation that, if Shaw should reinstate its request for access to your company's responses or some other requestor requests access to your company's responses pursuant to FOIL, the review of your responses in light of the FOIL exemptions for business confidential and trade secrets will need to be resumed.
If you have any questions, please contact me at (518) 402-8537.
Very truly yours,
/s/
Louis A. Alexander
Assistant Commissioner
cc: Meta R. Murray, Esq.
James Seaman, Esq.
Ruth Earl, Records Access Officer
