Question
It is certainly possible that the school district may cite privacy as a reason to turn down your request, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are correct to do so.
Government Code section 6254 provides that ” Except as provided in Section 6254.7, nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require disclosure of records that are … (c) Personnel, medical or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasions of personal privacy.” Generally speaking, however, this exemption is only supposed to apply to purely personal information in the files unrelated to the “conduct of the public’s business.” See San Gabriel Tribune v. Superior Court, 143
Cal.App.3d 762 (1983). If in fact a person was disciplined, or worse, fired because of some issue, that matter should be of sufficient public concern that should take it out of the realm of ‘personal privacy.” See AFSCME v. Regents, 80 Cal.App.3d 913 (1978). So in response to your latter question, you should certainly request access.
In response to your first question, you should be able to get access to any documents regarding actual discipline. If, on the other hand, the allegations were not deemed sufficient to warrant discipline — e.g. the allegations were deemed frivolous or not credible — then the school district may be on stronger grounds in deeming them “private.”
Answer
With respect to whether the Board of Directors is subject to the Brown Act, your inquiry does not provide enough information. The answer depends on whether it is a “legislative body” for the purposes of the Brown Act. The Brown Act defines that term in Government Code section 54952, which states as follows:
As used in this chapter, “legislative body” means:
(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, decision-making 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.
(c) (1) A board, commission, committee, or other multimember body that governs a private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity that either:
(A) Is created by the elected legislative body in order to exercise authority that may lawfully be delegated by the elected governing body to a private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity.
(B) Receives funds from a local agency and the membership of whose governing body includes a member of the legislative body of the local agency appointed to that governing body as a full voting member by the legislative body of the local agency.
(2) Notwithstanding subparagraph (B) of paragraph (1), no board, commission, committee, or other multimember body that governs a private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity that receives funds from a local agency and, as of February 9, 1996, has a member of the legislative body of the local agency as a full voting member of the governing body of that private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity shall be relieved from the public meeting requirements
of this chapter by virtue of a change in status of the full voting member to a nonvoting member.
(d) The lessee of any hospital the whole or part of which is first leased pursuant to subdivision (p) of Section 32121 of the Health and Safety Code after January 1, 1994, where the lessee exercises any material authority of a legislative body of a local agency delegated to it by that legislative body whether the lessee is organized and operated by the local agency or by a delegated authority.
Assuming the center you describe is a private corporation, you need to look to subdivisions 54952(c)(1) or (c)(2). A good resource for understanding this complex question is the Attorney General’s guide to the Brown Act, which is available on the Attorney General’s Internet web site.
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.