A citizen group is suing the San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith under the California Public Records Act for hiding official work-related communications in his private e-mail account. The complaint read “The reality is that Goldsmith does produce email communications about official city business sent to and from his personal email account, but he does so selectively, as a way to propagandize his official conduct that he believes is most favorable to him but that is not fully transparent.” (San Diego Reader, January 29, 2014, by Dorian Hargrove)
Goldsmith’s publicist issues the following about the lawsuit, “Cory Briggs [attorney for San Diegans for Open Government] has already filed a lawsuit seeking Interim Mayor Todd Gloria’s private records such as emails. That case is pending in superior court. In response, the City of San Diego’s legal position—in that case and any others—is to follow two appellate court decisions which, relying upon the language in the law, held that public agencies have an obligation to produce disclosable public records in the possession of the agency, but that does not extend to private records not in the agency’s possession. Whether to expand obligations under the law is up to the legislature.” (ABA Journal, February 3, 2014, by Martha Neil)