Question
I emailed the county executive officer asking for information about a brochure that our supervisor was handing out. I wanted to know how many brochures were printed, what the cost was and who did the job. Basically, I wanted to get a copy of the bid/contract.
He has not responded to my email. Does my email fall under the CPRA? Should I have cc’d the Board of Supervisors to make it official…or do I have to do an Express Mail with return receipt requested. Or can I type up a letter with attachments, make a copy of same and hand deliver to whatever county government office is appropriate, then ask for a date stamp on my copy.
We do not have a lot of money and since most of the county government offices are within a ten minute drive, can I ask for my copies of the CPRA requests be date stamped at the appropriate county agency?
I want my CPRA requests to be official…and as inexpensive as possible, what would you suggest? We will probably have many more requests that we’ll be asking for. I’ve made numerous email requests for information over the last year or so and few county employees respond.
We will be having a revised Community Plan EIR coming out soon and I need to be as current as possible re all county information. There are lots of questions that do not have answers re the county’s performance.
Answer
Under the California Public Records Act, Cal. Gov’t Code sections 6250 et seq. (“PRA”), 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, nor do you need to request a return receipt. However, as you probably know the PRA gives an agency 10 days to respond to a request, and so it can be helpful to have some proof of when the request is received by the agency. A date stamp would be one way to accomplish this goal.
A sample PRA request letter can be found on CFAC’s website at the following link: https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/cpra-primer/sample-cpra-request-letter/
Keep in mind that in order for a request to come under the PRA, you need to request documents. A request for information per se is not subject to the Public Records Act. Unless your email to Mr. Miller asked for documents, it would not be subject to Brown Act. One way to frame your requests is to ask for documents containing the information you are seeking. For example, you could ask for documents “sufficient to determine the number of brochures printed,” or “all documents pertaining to the cost of the brochures.”
Asked & Answered posts should not be relied on as legal advice, and FAC makes no guarantees about their completeness or accuracy. All posts carry a date of publication that readers should take note of in assessing their usefulness, given that laws and interpretations of them may change over time. Posts predating Jan. 1, 2023, that discuss the California Public Records Act may contain statute numbers no longer in use. Please see this page for a table showing how the California Public Records Act has been renumbered.