The city of Rochester receives roughly 4,000 requests for records under the state Freedom of Information Law every year — about two for every hour of business of every working day.

One of them recently came from the press secretary of Mayor Lovely Warren’s re-election campaign, Brad Willows, who wanted to know whether his boss and the two people challenging her for the Democratic ticket, Rachel Barnhart and James Sheppard, had outstanding water bills.

Under the law, government agencies have five business days to respond to requests in one of three ways: Provide the record, deny the record, or acknowledge receipt of the request in writing with an approximate date of when the record will be available.

The default response of most government agencies in most instances is the latter. The city is no exception.

But when Willows submitted his request, City Hall gave him what he wanted in about 24 hours, just in time for Warren to smack Barnhart with a delinquent water bill balloon in Thursday’s debate.

Andreatta:No winner as mayoral debate was a water bill under the bridge

After that balloon exploded, social media blew up with questions about the source and accuracy of the mayor’s information.

Warren could have accessed the information like anyone else — by visiting the property information portal on the city’s website. The portal provides details about water bills and taxes for any piece of real estate in the city.

The portal is not always up to date, however. After the debate, it showed that Barnhart wasn't delinquent, which fueled speculation about the veracity of the mayor’s claim.

That’s when Willows came to the rescue by tweeting an image of the city’s response to his request. The image showed his request was answered on Thursday and included the processing number, RR17-02663, assigned to his application.

“Your Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request #RR17-02663 has been processed,” the response read in part. “You requested information regarding: ‘Any overdue balances on water bills for Rachel Barnhart, Lovely Warren, and James Sheppard.’”

The response went on to show that Warren’s and Sheppard’s bills were current, and that Barnhart owed $35.02.

How do we know City Hall turned around his request in a day?

Earlier this year, the city launched a computerized system to accept and track FOIL requests online. Applicants can follow a request as it gets reviewed, filled, denied or redacted. Each step is time-stamped.

According to the website, FOIL request RR17-02663 was received at 11:23 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 6. It was routed to the appropriate department at 12:27 p.m. the next day, Thursday.

From there, the search for the information took about three hours, from 12:27 to 3:23 p.m. After that, it took two minutes for the records to be “reviewed.” That process ended at 3:25 p.m. The system deemed Willows’s request “fulfilled” at 3:27 p.m.

That's a remarkable turnaround time for what Willows’s tweet suggests was a routine exercise in opposition research that conveniently bore fruit hours before the mayor was to debate.

Water bills are public and easily accessible records. A clerk in the city’s Finance Department and Water Bureau could dig one up in seconds with a few taps on a keyboard.

So, could the city fulfill a FOIL request for a water bill in a day? Certainly.

The Warren administration and previous administration have processed more complex FOIL requests in less time for journalists, including this one, for information that would be in their interest to be made public.

Is it likely that the city would fulfill a FOIL request from John Q. Public for a water bill in a day?

Consider that the city routinely takes weeks and sometimes months to fulfill requests under FOIL for other public records that are also easily accessible. Ask anyone who's ever requested a police report.

Robert Freeman, who as the executive director of the state Committee on Open Government is the New York sage on open records requests, has seen it before.

“There are situations in which a request is simple and involves a record that is clearly public and sometimes the response is, ‘Sure, you can have it, it’s right over there,’” Freeman said.

“But in many situations,” he went on, “government, being somewhat bureaucratic, will respond with a letter indicating acknowledgement of the receipt of the request and an approximate date, usually exceeding five additional business days, indicating when it expects to make the record available.”

The city assigns FOIL processing numbers in sequential order. According to the city’s FOIL website, no other request entered on Wednesday had been “fulfilled” besides that of Willows, the mayor’s press secretary, as of this writing Friday afternoon.

Coincidence? Visit www.cityofrochester.gov/foil and file a request for a water bill for three random city residents and see how long it takes City Hall to answer.

Let me know what you learn.

David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com.

More:How to file a Freedom of Information Law request