Opinion
January 21, 1992
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Geiler, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is modified, on the law, by deleting the provision thereof dismissing the petition in its entirety, and substituting therefor a provision directing the respondents to produce the requested applications for the Homestead Program, redacted to reflect only the employment history of the applicants and otherwise dismissing the petition; as so modified, the judgment is affirmed, without costs or disbursements.
The petitioner requested that the respondents provide copies of the Town of Islip's cellular telephone bills for 1987, 1988 and 1989. The court correctly determined that the respondents complied with this request by producing the summary pages of the bills showing costs incurred on each of the cellular phones for the subject period. The petitioner never specifically requested any further or more detailed information with respect to the telephone bills. In view of the information disclosed in the summary pages, which indicated that the amounts were not excessive, it was fair and reasonable for the respondents to conclude that they were fully complying with the petitioner's request.
However, the petitioner's request for specified Homestead Program applications should not have been denied in its entirety. While the disclosure of the some of the material contained in the applications would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, the respondents should have disclosed the non-exempt information contained in the applications (see, Public Officers Law § 87 [b]; § 89 [2] [b]; Matter of Farbman Sons v. New York City Health Hosps. Corp., 62 N.Y.2d 75; Matter of Moore v Santucci, 151 A.D.2d 677). Indeed, the petitioner acknowledges on appeal that he may not be entitled to the entire application for each of the individuals involved. He has now limited his request to information that would show whether any of the named applicants is a past or present employee of the Town of Islip. Therefore, the respondents are directed to provide those applications, redacted to reflect only the employment history of the applicants.
Finally, regarding the petitioner's July 7, 1989 and July 19, 1989, requests for information, the court properly determined that the petitioner failed to exhaust his administrative remedies (see, Moussa v. State of New York, 91 A.D.2d 863; Matter of Floyd v. McGuire, 87 A.D.2d 388). Lawrence, J.P., Balletta, Rosenblatt and O'Brien, JJ., concur.