I've recently filed my first FOIA request, too. Unfortunately, it wasn't for a news story -- at least not for one I was covering.

In the past month or so, I've been the victim of, of all things, identity theft. Long story short -- a checkbook of mine was stolen, and the alleged is in custody (turns out he was also AWOL). But in order to clear my name, TWO different collection agencies wanted copies of actual police reports detailing the incident. If you ask me, it shouldn't be up to me to get that information to them. But at any rate, I had to FOIA for the reports, and it's been weeks since such an agency has badgered me.

If anyone wants more details, I'll be happy to share. But the moral of my story is: Don't get so busy that you become absent-minded and lose track of personal belongings.

Forgot to mention in my previous post that, when I did file the FOIA, I got all the paperwork I requested in less than 15 minutes. Now that's service!

Now let's just hope I don't ever have to file a FOIA for something like that ever again.

Finally, I don't want to stir too much up here, but admittedly, I've used the term "executive session" before in stories I've written, and I've never heard a complaint. I like to think that sometimes, we don't give our listeners enough credit when it comes to things like that. (If that's what the agenda calls it, most of the time, that's what I call it.) That said, "behind closed doors" is the next best thing -- or "met in private". To me, "secretly" makes an executive session sound like an OMA voilation, with all due respect.