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 review or the requests were sent directly to the City Attorneys’ Office. See the attached spread sheet. Requests were referred to the City Attorney (or sent directly to the City Attorney) because of concerns that some or all of the records requested would not be subject to disclosure under the Sunshine Ordinance or the Public Records Act. For example, documents could have confidential or privileged communications between the City Attorney’s Office and the City Council or City staff. Other requested documents that are not subject to disclosure would be ongoing police investigations.
With few exceptions, responses to the requests that were referred to the City Attorney’s Office were timely under the Sunshine Ordinance. Typically if the responses were beyond the 24 days contemplated by the Sunshine Ordinance it was due to the volume of the documents that needed to be reviewed. For example, in August 2018 there was a public records request concerning Tetra Tech documents. More than 3700 documents needed to be reviewed before they could be produced. As documents were reviewed, they were produced but the production dates were beyond the 24 day deadline. Similarly, a request in January 2019 for documents concerning Alameda Point involved a review of nearly 2600 documents. More than half were produced within the 24 day window but 40% were produced a month later. In both cases, the requestor was informed, without objection, that the documents would be released in batches. The only request where a response was not communicated to the requestor was a January 2019 request from a Kaitlin Bruce, a reporter from Sacramento. The records in question were a 1955 police report and the personnel file of a retired employee. There were no records as to the police report and the personnel file was not subject to disclosure; that information, however, was not communicated to Ms. Bruce in a timely way.
Accordingly, overwhelmingly, there have been timely responses to requests for public records when those requests have been referred to the City Attorney’s Office for review. In the few cases where the responses were beyond 24 days, with the exceptions noted above, the requestors were informed of the delay and the reasons for the delay, to which there were no objections.
If the Commission has any other questions on this matter, City staff will be present to respond.
Michael Roush
Assistant City Attorney
Attachment: Spread Sheet Concerning Public Records Act Request Referred to the City Attorney’s Office