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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 08102004 - SD6 Contra Costa TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS County FROta: Dark DeSaulnier DATE: August 10, 2004 ` SUBJECT: Public records accessibility SPECIFIC REQUESTS}OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMEND. The Contra Costa County Beard of Supervisors direct the County Administrator to assess the length of time it takes the county to respond to a request for public records by a member of the public. The County Administrator will report back to the Board its findings as well as make recommendations on how the process can be expedited. Direct County Counsel to prepare a summary of an individual's rights to public records with regards to the Fair Political Practice and Public Records acts for distribution to all county employees who handle requests for public records from the public. BACKGROUND: Can Sunday, July 25, 2004, the Contra Costa Times ran a story on the experiences of their staff's attempts to receive copies of public records from various public agencies. The records they sought are required by state law to be available to the public for review during normal business hours. The Contra Costa'Mmes article reported that Contra Costa County took 19 days to respond to the request for a copy of a Fonn 700 and the County Administrator's contract. It also reported that while the Form 700 was available for public review, the County Administrator's contract was not available as is required by law. CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: YES SIGNATURE: � asG'C v " RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGN UM51: ACTION OF BOARD ON $ "r r:: APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE UNANIMOUS(ABSENT ' } AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN -"—AYES: NOES. AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. JOHN SWEETEN,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR Contact: cc:CAO Chief Clerk of the Board County Counsel BY y . - _ ,DEPUTY _. Many,East Bay agencies delay or refuse public records request Pagel of 3 Posted on Sun,Jul. 25, 2004 ACCESS DENIED. A TIMES SPECIAL REPORT Many East Bay agencies delay or refuse public records request By Thomas Peele,Dens Gaff,Liz Tascl*and Ashley Surdin CONTRA COSTA TIMES Ask for routine public records at most Bay Area public agencies and you'll likely be met with suspicion, defensiveness, intimidation, needless delays, incompetence and ignorance. During a four-month Investigation of public records access at 86 governments, school boards and special districts, and 36 police departments,Times reporters encountered numerous impediments to seeing routine public records such as employment contracts and elected officials' economic disclosure forms. At Issue, public records advocates say, is the survival of transparent, representative government. Without access to records, especially at the local level, they say, there can be no defense against abuses of power such as overspending, favoritism and graft. During a six-week period beginning In April, the Times sent 20 reporters and editors to agencies across the region. They identified themselves only by name In order to gauge the response to an average person asking for records. State laws governing records access do not distinguish between journalists and the general public. When asked for immediate access to the records as state law requires, government workers sometimes demanded the reporters' identities and their reasons for wanting to see public documents. One official who denied access said she did so partly because she is "told to always watch over my shoulder for terrorists." Another government employee researched the identity of a requester on the Internet, bragging about it in an e-mail. At another agency a clerk e-mailed a reporter at work, apparently after learning of his employment through an Internet search. Each denial of public access is a dagger driven deep into the heart of democracy, public information advocates say. "It's appalling and baffling," said Terry Francke, a top public records expert and general counsel of Californians Aware, an open government group. "It's shocking," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Government Studies in Los Angeles. "A lot of these agencies appear to be clueless." Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge, head of the League of California Cities Policy Board, said he was surprised many agencies took more than a day or two to release documents. "If this happened in Riverside, we would rap the knuckles of the people responsible," Loverldge said. "Wow else can we be held accountable if this is not public information?" "It's a huge problem," said Tom Newton, general counsel of the California Newspaper Publishers Association. "Public access to information is the only way average citizens can maintain any level of control over their institutions." Political bodies need public input - input that can't occur if information is denied, said former Mt. Diablo school board member Dennis McCormac. "It's just flat wrong not to give out public records like this promptly. There is no excuse." But excuses abounded. Reporters were able to see the statements of economic interest at only 37 of 86 agencies on the day they asked to see them. The state- mandated documents list officials' businesses and investments to alert the public to conflicts of interest. California's 2974 Fair Political Practices Act requires that the forms be available for public review during business hours at all government agencies, no questions asked. http.//www.contracostatimes.cornhrrld/cctimes/news/9229679.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp 7/29/2004 ............................................. Many East Bay agencies delay or refuse public records request page 2 of 3 When reporters asked to see the employment contract of an agency's top executive official, such as a city manager or a school superintendent, 20 of 79 agencies granted immediate access to the document. (A few agencies, such as school districts under state control, did not have a contract applicable to the investigation). Some provided outdated contracts that failed to include significant increases in salaries approved as amendments to the original document. Public records advocates including Francke praised the Times survey for its simplicity because reporters asked for only unquestionably public records. The results, they said, were overwhelmingly poor and would have been worse If reporters had asked for complicated records such as cell phone bilis or expense reports, which state law classifies as public documents. Inaccessible government records cut off the public from decision making and its traditional watchdog role. Residents can use data to force changes In policies such as spending and travel, which occurred in Livermore last year after parents reviewed school board records. The Mt. Diablo Unified School District in Concord flatly rejected a request to look at its board member economic interest statements, a response that occurred 57 percent of the time in Contra Costa, Alameda and southern Solano counties. Sue Berg, assistant to the Mt. Diablo school district superintendent, later defended her decision. She said she understood that in theory she should not ask the public to justify their information requests. But"in this day and age, when I am told to watch for terrorists over my shoulder," she wasn't going to help someone "who walked In off the street and didn't identify themselves." She said she would ask anyone who sought records "why they needed them." The Fair Political Practices Commission regulates the economic interest forms. "The law is clear. It is very simple. Disclosure is required," said its spokeswoman, Sigrid Bathen. Only two school districts in Contra Costa County, San Ramon Valley Unified and Canyon, allowed access to the forms the day a reporter asked to see them. The city of Martinez took 27 days to provide its officials' forms.The Acalanes Union High School District took 15, and Pittsburg Unified schools 22. In Alameda County, the Oakland school board could provide only year-old economic statements. The Chabot-Las Positas Community College District took 22 days to produce the statements for Its board and its president's contract. In Solano County, a clerk at the Benicia school board refused to provide copies of the economic statements. When the reporter left an address so the forms could be mailed to her, the clerk followed the reporter to her car and said, "You're not from Benicia?" The city of San Ramon was among iii agencies that never gave up the records. City Clerk Judy Macfarlane said the request, which a reporter put In writing after immediate access was denied on April 4, must have been lost. "I don't know what happened," she said. San Ramon residents said the response is typical of Macfarlane. She often takes weeks to answer requests, when she answers at all, they said. "I frequently did not get what I wanted from the city," said Roz Rogoff, who writes a newsletter about city politics. "I would go back two or three times asking for material sometimes.Two or three months would pass and I would hear, "'Oh, we forgot. Weil get back to you."' Macfarlane claimed she did not have the time or staff to comply with state law. "You pick and choose and do your best," she said. She added that she sends the requests to the appropriate city department but does not follow up. She estimated that she processes at least 20 public record requests a month or about 240 a year and she did not have the resources to process them all. But city records show her office received 84 requests in the 12-month period that ended June 30, including some made orally for meeting minutes and letters. Other requests were for economic interest statements, building pians, contracts, audits and city laws, some of which, according to city records, were not given to the requester for weeks. The California Public Records Act allows agencies up to 10 days to produce records, but only for complicated queries. It requires agencies to "make records promptly available." Most agencies the Times surveyed automatically Imposed a 10-day waiting period for both the economic interest statements and employee http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cetimes/news/9229679.htm-?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp 7/29/2004 Many East B'4agencies delay or refuse public records request Page 3 of 3 contracts. The Public Records Act states that the 10-day period should not be used "to delay or obstruct the inspection or copying of public records." Francke and others said there can be no excuse for taking 10 days to produce a contract that a public body such as a city council or school board has approved. The median wait for contracts the Times requested was three days, with a high of 27 days for the city of Martinez. Contra Costa County took 19 days to provide Administrator John Sweeten's contract. Alameda County never produced Administrator Susan Muxanishl's contract. Twelve of 79 agencies, including San Ramon, the West Contra Costa school district and Sunoi Glen School District, never produced their top official's contract. Not all agencies denied access. Piedmont, Walnut Creek, Danville, Brentwood and Dublin city hall staff members provided documents Immediately and with no questions. "We try to fill those requests on the same day," said Piedmont City Clerk Ann Swift. "The city attorney does educational presentations and sends out Information so that people understand the rules" of public records, said Walnut Creek City Manager Mike Parness. But most local agencies do not offer training in public records law compliance. White, the spokeswoman for the Fair Political Practices Commission, said that because of deep budget cuts the commission no longer sends trainers around the state unless someone else pays for it. Reporters routinely encountered officials Ignorant of both the Fair Political Practices and Public Records acts. "When I was put In this position, I didn't receive any training. It was more of an oversight, not that we were hiding anything," said Jill Ramsay, an administrative assistant for the Acalanes school district who denied a reporter immediate access to records. At the Zone 7 Water Agency in Alameda County, executive secretary Barbara Morse met a reporter with a terse, "Let's get it out in the open. Who are you?" "Sometimes you have people coming in and you don't really know what their motivation is," Morse said later. "I don't think that's an unreasonable request given security." Morse, who has been with the water agency for more than ZO years, said she attended a class on public records last year. "It's something you pick up over the years," she said. Francke of Californians Aware said he could accept probing questions from officials if the requests had been vague. But in asking for employment contracts and economic interest statements, the Times requests "were laser-point," he said. "There couldn't be any vagueness In that." It Is obvious that officials simply reacted with their"default psychological disposition" to withhold public information, he said. "There is no downside (for the official) for saying no. No one has ever had an hour(of pay)docked because they said no." Part of the problem is the perception among officials that the records belong to them and not the public, said Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition. "Most people want to think they can exercise discretion as a public employee," Scheer said, and that leads them to withholding access. "An aspect of power is having control over information." 4,2tH�4 l.:}ltSa:�osfa ti.`F.eti,COFl1 and hire viN'ive sources.AH)1ighis Resezeed. ltttp:irwwx.covttraeostatimes.coil http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cetimes/news/9229679.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp 7/29/2004 FROM PAGE ONE JULY:25 2004 c 5 v,W,E • A7`�, This chart shrews how 86 public agipncies complied*-ifh iarltir-Pt litiW practices Act and the Public Records Act.The Fair Political Practices Act requires that aget'eies m�ke`stateiments.csf economic interest of their board and errlployees available for public review during business hours.The Public Records Act classifies contracts as public records that should be available for public inspection with nI or Tni imal delay. ALLOWED COPY OF NUMBER ALLOWED COPY OF NUMBER FORM 700 TO COPY FORM 700 OF DAYS CONTRACT TO COPY CONTRACT OF DAYS ASKED SEEN FORM 700 EVER TO OBTAIN BEEN CONTRACT EVER TO OBTAIN AGENCY WHY? IMMEDIATELY? IMMEDIATELY? RECEIVED? FORM 700 THAT DAY? THAT DAY? RECEIVED? CONTRACT CONTRA COSTA mtl wt Brentwood No Yes Yes Yes 1 Yes Yes Yes 1 C: It Concord No No NO Yes s No No Yes 6 sum C13anYtla1 Nc1YOS e EI Canito Yea Yes Yes Yes 1 Yes Yes Yes 1 ./Le�fartte 3No Yes Yes � Yes 1 Yes Yes . Yes 1 MAIN Mi Wrap No Yes Yes Yes 1 No No Yes 9 Sskts° Nr1 Otinda No Yes NO Yes 1 Pio NO Yes 5 1tic3te No: Ne ; d 18 :..,, 1:: x. .ne.,�. : RAY .a,»..,,., na.. ,.'.., Pittsburg No Yes Yes Yes 3 Yes Yes Yes i No Rich"for1d No No No NP 1#0 No ft HP mo NMI San f4uron No No No No NP No No No up W91*0*66k No,,, Yes Contra Cbsta County Yes Yes NO Yes 19 r No No Yes 19