Less than three months later, as of Feb. 16, the number of inquiries the council received more than doubled to 298. Everett said she thought the inquiries would slow down somewhat while the General Assembly was in session, but whether the legislature was in session or not mattered little to those grappling with FOIA on a daily basis. Citizen inquiries quickly outpaced those made by media and government representatives. Citizen inquiries made up 39 percent of the inquiries up to Nov. 29, but ballooned to 48 percent of the total in mid-February. Two factors contribute to the spike in citizen inquiries, says Everett.
Some inquiries are beyond the scope of the office.
First, a citizen might want information on court records or on how to interpret different sections of the Virginia Code, both questions that do not strictly deal with application of FOIA, as is mandated by the council's enabling statute. Second, the number includes repeat customers, one person contacting the office on more than one occasion. Neither fact should diminish the impact of the surging numbers. Everett had no preconceived notions of how many calls her office would deal with. The office, one of only a half-dozen in the country, was patterned after a similar New York office, which has been operating for more than 25 years in a state with nearly three times Virginia's population.