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Put it in writing...

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The Virginia Freedom of Information Act DOES NOT require a records requester to submit their request in writing, but it is probably a good idea for you to do this for multiple reasons. You can verbally request records, but you will likely find it easier to put your request in writing. The biggest reason for submitting your request in writing is simply to create a written record for your own records, and to make tracking your requests easier and more manageable. If you do decide to put your request in writing, it doesn't necessarily have to be anything fancy. It can be a simply worded request as long a you reasonably describe the information you are seeking so that the custodian of the records understands clearly what it is you are looking for. Miscommunication could lead to delays or possibly not finding any records responsive to your request at all. Writing it down could help you organize your thoughts which might in turn lead to a more clearly communicated description
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Virginia Municipal League "FOIA Bible"

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Read It! Learn it! Use It! This document turned up recently in a fairly broad request for emails containing the acronym "FOIA". I wasn't expecting to receive this document, which was created by the Virginia Municipal League prior to its disclosure as a responsive document in my request. If this document is important enough for the Public Information Officer of the city of Charlottesville to share with the new Public Information Officer of the Charlottesville Police Department , that tells me it is important enough for us to need to read and learn ourselves.
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Introduction

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(A sample portion of the body of a FOIA request.) Welcome to "I Can FOIA And You Can Too" . I have created this blog to help the public understand how to use the Freedom of Information Act to hold our government officials accountable and foster greater transparency. I am by no means an expert at using the Freedom of Information Act, however I do feel that I have learned a great many things about FOIA, and I want to share with you what I have learned. I hope that you will find the information in this blog useful, and I hope that it may inspire you to use your own rights to better understand what our elected officials are doing with the power we allow them to have. FOIA is a powerful and sadly underused tool at our disposal and it is my hope that explaining just how easy it is to use FOIA, we can change that underused part. For now, I am going to focus on what I know best, which is the Virginia FOIA process. Every jurisdiction has a different law for their own FOIA
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