After nearly two months of complaints from residents about the Urbana Police Department, two weeks after the killing of George Floyd, and one week after marching in the streets with thousands of people concerned with police violence, Mayor Diane Marlin decided that Urbana’s public records requests would be best handled by a retired police officer.
Marlin put forth Curtis S Borman as Urbana’s new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer (full June 8, 2020 staff appoints here). The questionable appointment does not only come in the wake of countless misconduct accusations against the police, but also countless misconduct accusations against Urbana and its previous FOIA officer, Charlie Smyth. Smyth left a heap of FOIA problems and one pending FOIA lawsuit when he left the position at the end of May (article here).
Given Curt Borman’s history as a police officer, and the current political climate, Marlin’s decision would seem like a recipe for disaster. Perhaps the only reason this appointment didn’t receive great public scrutiny is that everyone was so focused on the appointment of Police Chief Bryant Seraphin (article here).
Borman was hired by Urbana as an assistant city attorney in 2007 after a closed session meeting to discuss his position (here are minutes of that closed session, created more than 10 years after the meeting date by Borman’s predecessor). Little is known about his posture on handling public records, but it would seem that in the current environment, even the slightest impropriety would become explosive. Previously, Borman was a police officer in Skokie Illinos.
Borman’s wife, Elizabeth Borman, is also employed by the City of Urbana as the Assistant Human Resources Manager.
