Hinsdale will pay more than $3,000 to resolve a lawsuit over a denied public-records request for a downtown traffic and pedestrian safety survey.

Village Manager Kathleen Gargano signed a settlement in late September with Edgar Pal, reimbursing him $1,200 in legal costs, Patch first reported. The village's own legal bills in the dispute totaled $1,975, according to records Pal obtained.

The fight started in fall 2025. Pal filed a Freedom of Information Act request for results of the survey. The village denied the request, citing the FOIA preliminary-notes exception, which exempts preliminary drafts and notes. Attorney Mallory Milluzzi of the Chicago-based Klein, Thorpe and Jenkins law firm signed the denial letter.

The village said it followed guidance from the Illinois attorney general's office, which said in a written determination that it was appropriate to wait to release the materials until they were complete. Pal's attorneys at Loevy & Loevy disagreed. They sued the village in late November 2025, arguing the exception did not apply to a survey of residents expressing their own views and that the village could have redacted exempt material rather than withholding the entire document.

"The (attorney general's) opinion was non-binding, and my attorneys disagreed with the (attorney general's) conclusion that the FOIA exemption applied in this case," Pal told Patch in February, when the lawsuit was first reported.

The village released the survey results shortly after the lawsuit was served in early February. The survey drew 224 responses. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said downtown Hinsdale is safe and would recommend little or no change.

Village President Greg Hart defended the village's handling of the request.

"At the same time, the Village has an obligation to evaluate requests for information under applicable law, and reasonable legal interpretations can differ," Hart said in an email to Patch on Monday, Oct. 12. He said the survey results were shared with the community and Pal at the same time.

Hinsdale is not the only local government to withhold survey data. Clarendon Hills initially refused to release results of a survey on a proposed plaza before agreeing to release them with redactions. Lyons Township High School denied a request for survey data, then posted it after Patch filed a complaint with the attorney general.

Hinsdale High School District 86, by contrast, has published its survey results online for years.