NEW CITY, N.Y. — A Rockland County Supreme Court judge has ruled in favor of the publisher of the Rockland County Business Journal in a Freedom of Information Law dispute involving records connected to the bidding process for a new county animal shelter.
Justice John P. Collins Jr. issued the decision July 8 in an Article 78 proceeding brought by journalist Tina Traster and Tina Traster Productions LLC, which does business as the Rockland County Business Journal, against the Rockland County Solid Waste Management Authority, commonly known as Rockland Green.
The dispute centered on a Freedom of Information Law, or FOIL, request seeking records related to Rockland Green’s selection process for an approximately $18 million contract to construct a new county animal shelter. Traster sought the records as part of her reporting on how the public authority evaluated bids and selected a company for the project.
According to the court decision, Rockland Green withheld or redacted portions of records in response to the request, citing exemptions under state law. The Business Journal challenged those decisions in court, arguing that the authority had not provided sufficient legal grounds for withholding the information.
Collins ruled that Rockland Green had not met its burden of demonstrating that several of the requested records were properly exempt from disclosure under FOIL. The court ordered the authority to provide unredacted records to the petitioners within 30 days, with limited exceptions. Some documents are to be submitted to the court for further review before a final determination is made about whether they should be released.
The judge also ruled that Rockland Green must pay attorney’s fees associated with the case. The amount of those fees was not immediately specified in the reporting on the decision.
In his 15-page ruling, Collins discussed the role of New York’s Freedom of Information Law and the importance of public access to government records. The decision also addressed the role of journalists in examining the actions of public agencies. The court found that some of Rockland Green’s arguments for withholding records did not provide a sufficient factual or legal basis for applying the exemptions claimed by the authority.
FOIL generally gives members of the public the right to request records from state and local government agencies and other covered public entities. Agencies may withhold certain records or portions of records when specific exemptions under state law apply. When a request is denied, the person seeking the records may pursue an administrative appeal and, in some cases, challenge the decision through an Article 78 proceeding in state court.
The case was filed in 2025 after the dispute over the records was not resolved through the FOIL process. The Business Journal was represented by Michael M. Linhorst of the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic. Rockland Green was represented by attorneys with West Group Law PLLC.
The ruling requires Rockland Green to comply with the court’s disclosure directives but does not itself determine whether the underlying animal shelter contract was properly or improperly awarded. The case focused on whether the requested government records should be disclosed under New York law.
The court decision is officially titled Traster v. Rockland County Solid Waste Management Authority. The ruling was published by the New York State Law Reporting Bureau as an uncorrected opinion and will not be published in the printed Official Reports.
