The New York Post and local cable news channel NY1 News have filed a lawsuit against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his administration over its alleged refusal to produce e-mail exchanges between the Mayor and several of his key advisors.

According to a September 7 verified petition and complaint filed in New York County Supreme Court, the suit involves 2015 Freedom of Information Law requests into communications made between de Blasio, senior members of his administration and PR advisor Jonathan Rosen, who heads progressive PR and political shop BerlinRosen Public Affairs.

BerlinRosen advises real estate companies, politicos, labor unions such as The United Auto Workers and advocacy groups such as Coalition for the Homeless. The agency was also hired by Detroit in 2013 to handle that city’s bankruptcy process. The New York-based shop, which is comprised of several former Obama administration officials, played a vital role in aiding de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral election. Rosen co-founded BerlinRosen in 2005 with principal Valerie Berlin.

Bill de BlasioNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

Under the Freedom of Information Act, mayoral communications are presumed available for public inspection. The complaint, which names NY1 political reporter Grace Rauh and New York Post City Hall bureau chief Yoav Gonen as complainants, alleges that the requested communications in question involve email exchanges made between the parties during the Mayor’s first year in office. While some email chains were provided by City Hall to Rauh, the complaint alleges that the Mayor’s Office withheld some communications on the grounds that the information was “exempt from disclosure,” either because the materials constituted an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” or that they were “under the inter-agency and intra-agency exemption of Public Officers Law,” because they “involved advice to the Mayor and other members of the Mayor’s Office provided by Mr. Rosen as a consultant to the Mayoralty.”

According to a FOIL request response submitted to Rauh by the Mayor’s Office, City Hall alleged the withheld communications between de Blasio and Rosen were exempt under FOIL disclosure because Rosen wasn’t representing his own interests or those of other clients, but was “acting as a consultant to the Mayor … to advance the Mayor’s governmental agenda and thus the interests of the people of New York.” In other words, according to a September 9 NY1 report on the suit, the de Blasio administration claims that while Rosen and others are not City Hall employees, their advisory work for the Mayor means “they should effectively be treated like city employees and protected from certain Freedom of Information Act requests.”

Rauh has reported extensively on BerlinRosen’s consulting work for City Hall and other elected officials, and the potential conflicts of interest that may arise as a result of advising the Mayor while simultaneously advising private interests such as real estate developers that negotiate with the city and seek its influence.

BerlinRosen was one of five New York PR/PA firms to file a suit earlier this year in response to the controversial advisory opinion passed by New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics that would reclassify PR firms in the state as lobbyists.

de Blasio on his radio program Friday said his office’s decision not to release communications involving “ongoing discussions where I’m seeking advice from a private advisor” is a decision he believes is “appropriate by the legal guidance we received,” and said City Hall was prepared to “defend that in court.”

NY1, which is owned by Time Warner Cable, is available on that telecommunications company’s New York City cable system. New York City daily newspaper the New York Post is a property of Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp.