CHAMPAIGN — City officials will ask a court to review the attorney general's decision favoring an appeal from The News-Gazette, which asked the city to turn over electronic communications on elected officials' personal devices.

The city will file the complaint this week as the deadline for doing so nears, said City Attorney Fred Stavins. Last month, Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office said elected officials must release city-related correspondence — such as email, text and Twitter messages — even if those communications are held on devices not owned by the city.

City officials think the attorney general's binding opinion is deserving of a court review, Stavins said.

"We believe that this is a unique question that the attorney general has answered, and we think that a court should review the answer," Stavins said. There are very few cases that deal with "the retrieval of electronic communications from the personal device of an elected official," he said.

The question of whether correspondence on Champaign officials' personal devices is subject to the requirements of the state's Freedom of Information Request began with a request from The New-Gazette on July 15.

That open-records request asked for "all electronic communications, including cellphone text messages, sent and received by members of the city council and the mayor during city council meetings and study sessions since (and including) May 3."

The city returned 24 pages of emails from council members' city-issued addresses but denied communications on personal devices on the grounds that they are not in the city's possession and therefore not subject to the laws governing public records.

The newspaper asked for an official review from the state's public access counselor, a division of the Office of the Attorney General set up to interpret and enforce the Freedom of Information Act. The PAC ruled on Nov. 15 that communications regarding city business on officials' personal devices are subject to disclosure under FOIA.

"Whether information is a 'public record' is not determined by where, how or on what device that record was created," the Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office wrote. "Rather, the question is whether that record was prepared by or used by one or more members of a public body in conducting the affairs of government."

The city has until next week to file the complaint in either Sangamon or Cook counties. Stavins said officials have yet to make a "strategic determination" as to where to file the lawsuit. He added that the city will handle the case internally and not hire outside counsel.