Asked & Answered

Q:  A group of community members drafted a petition to place on Change.org, requesting an audit of a county department.  After receiving several thousand signatures, the results, broken out by supervisorial district, were sent to each county supervisor. One supervisor replied that these matters have been addressed. “Therefore, neither I nor my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors believe an independent audit is warranted.” This may be a stretch, but it appears that the matter was

Q:  In response to public comment that I made before the school board, the school district’s Charter School Division sent an email to a charter school asking for data so that they could report back to the Board.  I sent a Public Records Act request to the District asking for a copy of the report that was generated using this data. The school district has informed me that the records that I requested are exempt

Q: The city’s communication offices refuses to add us to their official media e-mail list, that sends information and notices about events the mayor will attend or news conferences. The office also purposely refuses to answer our calls and e-mails, based on our legitimate news coverage. What recourse do we have to at least compel them to add us to their news e-mail list? We had a direct conversation (which was recorded with permission) asking

Q: I sent a personal email the day before the election to friends, neighbors and people I knew through my children. It was a reminder to get out and vote with personal opinions of all four candidates. I mentioned the publisher of our local paper by name with one of the candidates. Someone in my email chain forwarded my private email to the publisher/editor. The publisher then copied the town officials and candidates demanding I apologize

Q: I recently submitted a public records request to the county. My request was denied on two objections: The first was that it wasn’t specific enough. The second reason was this: “The County further objects that your request is unduly burdensome. Responsive documents will likely include records that are exempt from disclosure, such as records that reveal the privileged and confidential deliberative process and attorney-client privileged communications, as well as other confidential communications. It would