The answer is that no, that request should not be filled, and certainly not in that way.
From a FOI POV, email is tough because it straddles a line between “record”, deliberative material and conversation. Everyone hates sharing email because it is always trouble.
In this case, they didn’t have a good process in place and nobody did a privilege or other review. The hint there is the police material — most police records are trivially made exempt from foi in most places.
But to your point, there are many categories of communication with government where there is literally no expectation of privacy. If you email the zoning board something, you should fully expect to see the entire email in a public record somewhere.
From a FOI POV, email is tough because it straddles a line between “record”, deliberative material and conversation. Everyone hates sharing email because it is always trouble.
In this case, they didn’t have a good process in place and nobody did a privilege or other review. The hint there is the police material — most police records are trivially made exempt from foi in most places.
But to your point, there are many categories of communication with government where there is literally no expectation of privacy. If you email the zoning board something, you should fully expect to see the entire email in a public record somewhere.