Freedom of Information Act

The City of Carbondale falls under the provisions of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Persons wishing to view or obtain copies of City records should submit a written request to the City Clerk's Office either by mail, fax, or email. The City has five working days to provide the records; however, certain records are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, in which the requestor will be provided an explanation of the denial.

City of Carbondale FOIA Officers

Online Records

The passage of Public Act 98-1129 provides that a public body is not required to furnish copies of records that are maintained on the public body’s website. In the event that a person is unable to reasonably access the record, they should resubmit their FOIA request, and advise the public body why they were not able to access said records. Then the public body shall provide the requested record in accordance with the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

Fees for Records

Copies of records will be provided in the format specified by the requestor, if feasible. Charges for copies of records will be imposed in accordance with the following:

  • The first 50 black-and-white, letter-size pages and/or legal-size pages will be copied and provided free of charge.
  • All letter-size and/or legal-size black-and-white copies exceeding the first 50 copies will be provided at a cost of fifteen cents per page.
  • All of the following will be provided at the City's actual cost for reproducing the record:
    • CDs
    • Color copies
    • Discs
    • Diskettes
    • DVDs
    • Maps
    • Oversized copies
    • Plats
    • Tapes
  • Fees applicable to copies furnished in a paper format shall not be applicable to those records when furnished in an electronic format, except in the case of a voluminous request. For a voluminous request where records are to be provided in an electronic record format (but not PDF), $20 up to 2 MB, $40 up to 4MB, and $100 over 4MB; if the records are in PDF format, $20 up to 80 MB; $40 up to 160 MB; and $100 for more than 160 MB of data. If the responsive electronic records are in both a portable document format and not in a portable document format, the public body may separate the fees and charge the requester under both fee scales.
  • Copies may be certified by the City Clerk at an additional cost of $1 per record.
  • There is a charge of $10 for each hour spent by personnel in searching for and retrieving a requested record or examining the record for necessary redaction. No fees shall be charged for the first 8 hours spent by personnel in searching for or retrieving a requested record.
  • Per the Illinois Vehicle Code, 625 ILCS 5/11-416, there is a fee of $5.00 for copies of traffic crash reports

Submitting a Request

Access the Request for Records form.