Title
Report Concerning Responses to Public Records Act (PRA) Requests Referred to the City Attorney's Office
Body
To: Chair and Members of the Open Government Commission
From: Michael Roush, Assistant City Attorney
Re: Report Concerning Responses to Public Record Act Requests Referred to the City Attorney's Office
BACKGROUND
Under the City's Sunshine Ordinance, when the City receives a request for public records, the Custodian of Records within 10 days is to comply with the request; in unusual circumstances, the time to respond may be extended an additional 14 days. Section 2-93.2 c), Alameda Municipal Code. On the Open Government Commission's July 23, 2019 agenda was a complaint filed by Commissioner Shabazz that the City failed to respond timely under the Sunshine Ordinance to a request that he had made for public records pertaining to the Police Department. Because the request had been referred to the City Attorney's Office, that Office acknowledged that it had failed to respond timely because there had been an error in the Office's internal system for tracking requests for public records, i.e., the tracking system indicated in error that a response had been provided timely.
At the meeting, the Commission asked how many requests for public records did the City Attorneys' Office receive and whether there were other instances where a timely response had not been provided due to an error in the Office's internal tracking system. The Office representative did not have that information readily available but indicated he would research the question and provide a written response to the Commission. This report provides that response.
DISCUSSION
First, the City receives many requests for public records that are not referred to the City Attorney's Office to review. Over the past year, however, more than 50 such requests were either sent to another department (most often the City Clerk's Office) which then forwarded the request to the City Attorney for ...
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