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Asked & Answered

City Clerk requires Ad Hoc reports to be in announcements

FAC October 6, 2009

Q:Why would our city clerk require city Commissions to move all ad hoc reports and standing committees from agenda items to the announcements portion of the meeting? They are not listed on the agenda unless the ad hoc specifies the exact language of the action/recommendation for our city council. Then it gets more complicated because an agency of the city can be listed on the agenda but a standing committee from one of the neighborhood

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Tax collector withholding documents

FAC July 16, 2009

Q: My request to the County Tax Collectors’ office for “any handbook, manual or instructions that delineate the process in which your office processes claims for excess proceeds” is almost one month past the day they received the request and have refused to respond. What should I do? A. It seems that the agency is ignoring your request without citing any authority for withholding the record or without giving you notice that it will extend

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Requesting welfare application of divorced spouse

FAC July 16, 2009

Q: Would I  be able to access my ex-spouse’s recently filed California welfare application? My belief is the application was falsified regarding residency. A: The kind of information you are seeking–names and addresses–may fall under the California Public Records Act (“PRA”) privacy exemption. The PRA provides that public records are presumptively open to the public, unless exempt from disclosure under the PRA. The PRA exempts from disclosure “[p]ersonnel, medical, or similar files, the disclosure of

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Parents denied access to juvenile court records

Peter Scheer July 14, 2009

Q: Is it true that a court can refuse to provide a transcript of a court proceeding to the accused in a case or to the parent of the juvenile accused? What recourse is there to challenge that refusal? If the answer could depend on which state it’s in, where would you start looking to find a procedure to challenge the refusal? A: Many states, including California, have adopted laws that make juvenile records confidential

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A&A: Protesting on Sidewalks

FAC June 14, 2009

Protesting on Sidewalks Q: We arrived at the sidewalk in front of the Fox television offices. We demonstrated for about an hour then I took the bullhorn and stepped onto the private sidewalk that leads up to the front door of the office building. I spoke my piece as FOX security guards surrounded me and told me I was on private property. I knew that my civil rights were being violated, and that I had

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