Whether inbox messages sent to a mayor’s Facebook profile (which was not maintained or used by the office of the mayor) were public records under FOIA; Exceptions to FOIA’s disclosure requirement; MCL 15.243; “Public body”; MCL 15.232(h); Bisio v Village of Clarkston; “Public record”; MCL 15.232(i); Hopkins v Duncan Twp; West v Puyallup; Howell Educ Ass’n, MEA/NEA v Howell Bd of Educ

Holding that inbox messages sent to defendant-city’s mayor’s Facebook page, which was not maintained or used by the office of the mayor, were not public records under FOIA, the court affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary disposition for defendant. Defendant denied plaintiff’s request for the messages, noting the Facebook account in question was used for the mayor’s political campaign purposes, and not to conduct city business. Plaintiff then sued, alleging the page was not strictly used for campaign purposes, and the writings he sought were public records. The trial court granted summary disposition for defendant, finding the messages were not subject to disclosure under FOIA because the Facebook account was not “prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by” defendant and, thus, the messages were not public records. On appeal, the court held that the trial court did not err by granting summary disposition for defendant because the direct messages sent to the Facebook profile were not subject to disclosure as public records under FOIA. “Defendant met its burden of sustaining its decision to withhold the requested records from disclosure because the record evidence indicates that the direct messages were not owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by [defendant’s] mayor’s office in the performance of an official function.”