December 5, 2018
FOIL Control No. 2018FR02666 Response
Dear Mr. Karim:
In response to your Freedom of Information Law request, please be advised that a total of 15 raccoons collected from Central Park between 7/26/2018 and 10/12/2018 tested positive for canine distemper.
Over 175 sick raccoons were collected but not all were submitted for testing. Testing was used as a tool to help define the geographic extent and duration of the outbreak in Central Park.
Thank you,
Chari Anhouse
Associate General Counsel/Records Access Officer
NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene
Dear Ms Anhouse,
I have read your latest letter dated 5:05PM December 5, 2018 and have not seen any documents, nor have I received any attachments of the documents which I requested.
Unless you have intentions of providing the requested documents at a later date, even if you gave me no indications of such, then you and the Department of Health have failed to comply with the Freedom of Information Law.
You have had way more time to provide these documents that is allowable by law. The law allows twenty (20) days for you to comply. You have taken two months and have still not provided any documentation.
I can see from your job title that you are 'Associate General Council/Records Access Officer'--a trained and qualified professional in that field, so you cannot pretend to not know the stipulations of the Freedom of Information Law.
The fact that you have mentioned specific numbers of raccoons and specific dates in your latest letter, I must assume that you are reading this information from documents--documents that you have failed to provide me.
This matter will be forwarded to the Department of Justice for violation of the FOIL.
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December 5, 2018 - Update on the Department of Health FOIL request:
As expected, I received no communication from the DOH today. They could not even provide a fake test result for me as required by law.
They probably know that I will probe any documentation they provide, so it's not easy for them to fake this.
The Department of Health are the people who are pressuring you to vaccinate your children and take flu shots which have been proven to be harmful--even deadly. These are the people that we are supposed to trust to protect our health!
Here they are lying about innocent raccoons in Central Park that cannot defend themselves. Central Park do not want any wild animals in the park so they can turn it into an arena for mindless entertainment.
Where are all NYC's lawyers, University professors, Ornithologists, Biologists etc? I know where they are! They are too afraid to speak up for fear of jeopardizing their pathetic jobs.
I do have sufficient free time to visit Central Park to take new pictures, but to be quite honest I look for the slightest excuse not to go. For every time I visit the park I get so angry when I see what the Central Park Conservancy is doing to the park. I get even angrier when I see the many Birders who cower behind their Swarovskies and say nothing about the destruction and abuse these frauds are getting away with--chopping down trees, over-manicuring, extravagant fund-raising events. I have to brace myself to get in the right mood to face that sort of thing when I visit the park.
Not to mention the stupid and illiterate police that drive around in circles in the park and pick and choose which laws they enforce.
Anyway, here is an item that may interest some of you...
In summer this year, numerous signs appeared in and around Central Park stating the following:
"RACCOON DISTEMPER ADVISORY...
Raccoons in Central Park have tested positive for canine distemper virus."
On August 14th, almost 4 months ago I tried to file a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law), request using the Department of Health's website to get proof that the information on their sign was truthful, but I was unable to successfully submit my request. Many government agencies purposely put snags on their website to frustrate us when we seek information from them, hoping that we'll just give up and go away.
Knowing from my past experiences with the DOH that they cannot be trusted, I was determined to get my FOIL request through to them.
Finally, on October 1st, I was able to successfully make the FOIL request through the Mayor's Office and I received my first acknowledgement from the City of New York. The City of NY stated that they will be forwarding my request to the 'appropriate agency'.
By the way, I requested copies of the test results of the raccoons which the DOH's sign stated were 'tested positive' for 'canine distemper' in Central Park.
On October 16th, I received an email directly from the Department of Health, stating that they are 'conducting a search' for the requested documents.
Almost one month later, on November 13th, I received another email from the DOH stating that they have not completed their search and that they will respond by December 4th.
Mind you, the so-called tests were no doubt recently done and should still be sitting on someone's desk or in their Inbox. It's not like these tests were done five or ten years ago. So why is it taking the DOH so long to provide me with the documents?
There is no 'national security' or 'privacy' issues associated with tests results on wild raccoons in Central Park.
Anyway, today is December 4th, and I anxiously await these test results which they promised in their last email. If I do get anything from the DOH it will be interesting to see how much effort they made to fabricate these test results which they will present to me--if they do. I'll post an update either way.
