Access to rezoning information
Q: Our local school district here in decided that they want to rezone school boundaries. The district went ahead and formed a committee to make boundary recommendations. The committee members were chose by invitation only, without any notice to the public at large. We (myself, and other members of the community) recently learnt that all this has happened, and that the committee has already had one meeting. The school district has refused to tell us the names of the committee members, and the committee meetings are behind closed doors. The school district wants to keep committee deliberations secret until the committee has made its final recommendation.
What are the public’s rights in terms of getting access to:
– Information such as how the committee was formed, does the committee have equal representation from all schools etc
– Names and background information on the committee members
– Access to attend the meetings or to obtain detailed meeting notes immediately after the meeting?
A: You first asked what the public’s rights are with respect to information, such as how the committee was formed. There is no law that requires government agencies to respond to questions made of them by members of the public. Therefore, an agency such as the school district does not necessarily need to respond to general requests for information. However, the California Public Records Act (“PRA”) controls whether or not members of the public have a right to inspect documents of state and local agencies. Therefore, you may have a right to inspect documents containing information such as the backgrounds of the committee members.
Under the PRA, Cal. Gov’t Code sections 6250 et seq., any member of the public has a right to inspect documents owned, used or retained by a state or local agency unless one of the PRA’s exemptions to disclosure applies. A request under the PRA can be either oral or in writing, and does not need to include any magic words to be effective. However, there are certain benefits to putting your request in writing. Among other things, to the extent the agency denies your request, they must notify you of that denial in writing. Gov’t Code Section 6255. Your request does not need to be sent in any particular matter. Additionally, the PRA gives an agency 10 days to respond to a request. Gov’t Code Section 6253( c).
A sample PRA request letter can be found on CFAC’s web site at the following link: http://www.cfac.org/templates/cpraletter.html.
Here, in order for your request to cover the material you are seeking, it may be useful to request documents that provide information on exactly that information. For example, you may want to specify request to “all documents sufficient to determine the name and background information of committee members,” or something to that effect.
It is possible that the school district will assert the PRA’s exception for documents the disclosure of which would implicate privacy rights. Gov’t Code Section 6254(c). Under this Section, “[p]ersonnel, medical, or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” are exempted from disclosure under the PRA. However, this provision would likely be inapplicable. Numerous attorney general opinions have addressed the scope of this exception, which is summarized as follows:
1. For a privacy exemption to apply, there must be a reasonable expectation of privacy, under the circumstances, in the records/information at issue.
2. An asserted right to privacy must be balanced against the public interest in the disclosure of the information at issue, with the burden of proof on the proponent of nondisclosure.
3. Where the information at issue helps to explain the government’s conduct of its business, that weighs in favor of disclosure.
Additionally, the kind of information that would be included in a resume, curriculum vitae or job application to demonstrate a person’s fitness, in terms of education, training or work experience, for a government job is not a matter of privacy. Eskaton Monterey Hospital v. Myers, 134 Cal. App. 3d 788 (1982). Further, One court interpreted the provision to exempt “[o]nly purely personal information unrelated to ‘the conduct of the public’s business.'” San Gabriel Tribune v. Superior Court, 143 Cal. App. 3d 762 (1983).
You also asked about the public’s rights are with respect to access to attend meetings, as well as access to notes following a meeting. The Brown Act is the controlling California law with respect to access to public meetings. Meetings of a “legislative body” subject to the Brown Act are presumptively open to the public if one of the Act’s exceptions does not apply. Gov’t Code Section 54953(a). Therefore, the first inquiry is whether the committee is a legislative body under the Brown Act. The Brown Act defines a legislative body as:
(a) The governing body of a local agency or any other local body created by state or federal statute.
(b) A commission, committee, board, or other body of a local agency, whether permanent or temporary, decisionmaking or advisory, created by charter, ordinance, resolution, or formal action of a legislative body. However, advisory committees, composed solely of the members of the legislative body that are less than a quorum of the legislative body are not legislative bodies, except that standing committees of a legislative body, irrespective of their composition, which have a continuing subject matter jurisdiction, or a meeting schedule fixed by charter, ordinance, resolution, or formal action of a legislative body are legislative bodies for purposes of this chapter.
Gov’t Code Section 54952 (emphasis added). As noted, a committee formed by “formal action” of a legislative body falls under the provisions of the Brown Act. In order for a committee to be formed by formal action, it is generally sufficient where a legislative body establishes a mission or agenda for a specific group and defines its representatives, unless a specific exception applies. See Joiner v. City of Sebastopol, 125 Cal. App. 3d 799, 801 (1981). The committee you describe in your request might qualify as a legislative body for purposes of the Brown Act, depending on how it was created.
Your last question was regarding the public’s access to meeting notes after a meeting. First, neither the PRA nor Brown Act require a state or local agency to keep meeting minutes. However, to the extent documents from a meeting exist, they should be made available under the PRA. Further, the Brown Act makes clear that “agendas or public meetings, or any other writings, when distributed to all, or a majority of all, of the members of a legislative body of a local agency by any person in connection with a matter subject to discussion or consideration at a public meeting of the body, are disclosable under the [PRA] and shall be made available upon request without delay.” Gov’t Code Section 54957.5(a). Therefore, materials distributed at such a meeting should be made available “without delay,” upon request, unless one of the PRA’s exceptions to disclosure applies. This language may be useful in PRA request letter, for requests for meeting materials.