The mayor's office played an amusing little April Fool's prank on Sunday. They issued the below release, detailing how the mayor was going through the very channels that reporters use to check up on his work, to find out more about himself. Take a look:
EMANUEL FOIAs SELF
Mayor is “Very Interested in Learning More”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced today that he has filed a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to learn more about himself, a topic that he considers to be extremely relevant and interesting to Chicagoans.
“I look forward to receiving a response from the City of Chicago within the five business days prescribed by law,” Emanuel said. “I have cleared my schedule for next weekend and look forward to doing a deep dive into the documents. I plan to learn everything I can about myself, and I believe I will enjoy this greatly.”
Emanuel’s administration said this is the first time a Mayor has ever FOIA’d himself, and this is the largest self-FOIA in city history. Given the scope of the documents, the FOIA response will create up to 500 jobs.
According to Emanuel, “It’s a new me. The only four-letter F-word I use now is ‘FOIA.’”
“I’ve Google’d myself before,” Emanuel said. “Who hasn't? Other than Rick Santorum. I Google’d myself while I was riding the Brown Line to work this morning. But I consider Googling myself a down-payment on what I’m going to do now.”
Emanuel hopes to receive emails, phone records, pictures, text messages, holiday cards, lunch receipts, discarded chewing gum, autographed photos of Ald. Ameya Pawar, and other documents.
The Mayoral self-FOIA was met with widespread acclaim from the city’s transparency leadership.
“The Better Government Association fully supports Mayor Emanuel in this objective, and we have committed to FOIA’ing the Mayor’s FOIA immediately,” said Andy Shaw, of the Better Government Association.
There was no indication from Emanuel’s staff as to how the new findings would be used, if the FOIA is even approved. The Mayor’s plan to FOIA himself was previously announced by the Mayor two weeks ago.
