Woman fighting county for records

“Bitter old lady ”scream’s and holler’s about the process“ of building a Chabad House”

To view pictures of the construction Click Here!

Coralie Pryde has made six trips in 10 months to the New Castle County Land Use Department to see what she believes are public records about a building project in the 1800 block of Silverside Road in Talleyville.

Pryde opposes the project because she says the proposed Chabad Lubavitch Enrichment Center is too big for the land it will sit on, does not have adequate parking, will disrupt traffic and infringes on the border of a stream that occasionally floods the neighborhood.

In her pursuit of the records she has been accused of being anti-Semitic and disruptive and of wasting the time of busy county officials. She also has been subtly threatened with a lawsuit for asking what a lawyer suggested are too many questions about the project.

Despite that, Pryde says she still has not seen all the records.

County officials say they have tried to accommodate her.

“We’ve given her all the files that we have,” said Charles Baker, general manager of the Land Use Department. “We’ve had countless phone calls and conversations with her trying to provide information to her.”

County officials have spent a lot of time with her, Pryde acknowledged. “I’m just saying that they did not allow me to see the records that I asked for.”

The problems Pryde, a retired scientist, says she has encountered highlight the difficulties many citizens have when trying to use the state’s weak Freedom of Information Act.

Complaints range from lengthy delays, high copying fees, a failure to properly publicize meetings and outright refusals to release documents.

The volume of complaints points to the need to strengthen the law, said Letitia Diswood, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Delaware.

The league is among several organizations, along with Common Cause and the American Civil Liberties Union, trying to get the law beefed up.

Pryde’s battle over the center’s plans began in June when a neighbor told her a new set of plans had been submitted to the county.

She and some neighbors had fought the project when it was proposed several years ago and eventually wound up in court. In 2002, former Superior Court Judge Richard Gebelein ruled against them. The builders didn’t start the project on time, however, and their variances expired. The result: The plans had to be resubmitted.

Pryde first went to the department July 15 asking to see the plans and related documents. She says she was shown only a thin file. She waited a few days and then got in touch with planners, asking to meet with them. They asked her, instead, to send them questions they could answer. She e-mailed the questions but despite follow-up e-mails and telephone calls she heard nothing back.

‘Shocked but not really surprised’

In late August another neighbor told her that the project had been approved July 26.

“I was shocked,” she said, “but not really surprised.”

In September she filed a formal FOIA request asking to see “all the records” relating to the project. County officials say she came in to see those records on Oct. 20. Pryde, however, says she actually went to the department Oct. 12, 14 and 19 and was required to sign in each time.

She says the file was incomplete. Records — including transcripts from Board of Adjustments meetings and property transfers — were missing.

Baker disagrees.

“Some of the things she’s asking for, we’re not sure that they exist,” he said.

On Oct. 21, Pryde e-mailed the department asking employees to help locate the missing items. On Nov. 15 county officials wrote her noting the records she reviewed in October were being returned to storage. County officials say they cannot keep records in their offices very long due to the volume of FOIA requests they get for the roughly 15,000 permits and another 20,000 to 30,000 other documents they process annually.

Over the next few months Pryde sent more e-mails asking to see records and again went to the department. On March 31 she received a letter from Wilmington attorney David Margules, writing on behalf of the Chabad Lubavitch congregation. He warned Pryde that if the Chabad Lubavitch project is delayed or has cost overruns due to the questions she has been asking, “we will seek all available legal remedies.”

Margules did not return calls regarding the letter, a copy of which has been obtained by The News Journal.

Pryde said she considers the letter an attempt to scare her into surrendering her basic right to question the project.

“I will not be intimidated,” she said.

On April 20 Pryde went to the department and spent an afternoon reviewing files. Again, she said, they were not complete.

Rabbi Chuni Vogel, the head of the Chabad Lubavitch congregation, said he and the builders have filed everything asked of them. As far as he knows, there is a complete file in the county’s possession.

Baker said that in some cases records might get misplaced.

“It’s possible that some records get mixed in with a person’s papers and get carried off by mistake,” he said.

Baker said Pryde’s complaint is the first he’s heard since the county reformed its FOIA practices last year on orders from County Executive Chris Coons.

County spokeswoman Christy Gleason said as a result a lot of information is available — both online and in offices — without forcing people to use the FOIA law.

“The Land Use Department has been in the forefront of that, frankly,” she said.

But Pryde is not the only one who has had problems getting records from the department.

Bernie Dempsey, a Delaware Nature Society member, went to the department in mid-December to review the Chabad Lubavitch project files.

“I found absences in the file. There were approvals without all the proper information being available,” he said.

Missing information

Richard Klein of Community & Environmental Defense Services in Maryland said he also has had trouble getting information from the department.

Klein reviewed files and purchased documents in late January. He received a package from the department in early February that was missing several documents he had paid for. He wrote the department asking for those files. On March 14 he wrote again. They were finally sent in late March.

Under Delaware’s system of government, Pryde could have gone to the state Attorney General’s Office to ask for help. The attorney general cannot act on behalf of citizens when a state agency is involved in a FOIA dispute because, by law, it must defend those agencies. However, the attorney general can be asked to review the actions of local and county governments.

Construction has already started on the center, so it is unlikely it can be halted even if Pryde gets to see all the records and documents she has asked for.

That won’t stop her from trying to get them.

“It may be too late for me to stop construction,” she said, “but it’s not too late for me to scream and holler about the process and to make people see that things need to be done to correct it.”