FAC

Q: I have been an adjunct prof at a local Junior College for 20 years. When a student  was prevented from passing out constitutions on Constitution Day, I publicly criticized the Administration. They retaliated by giving me a terrible teaching evaluation and by forbidding me to use my own writings in my classes. In response, I filed two whistle-blower complaints against the Community College District and several of its employees. Immediately, the District unlawfully retaliated by threatening

Q: I am covering an ongoing issue with a law enforcement officer whose cases are being hit with multiple Pitchess and Brady motions due to reported manufacturing of evidence on search warrants (for one). It looks like the judges will be moving any live testimony into chambers and I am looking for a way to legally challenge in camera proceedings. A: It is unclear whether the proceedings you are covering are civil or criminal, but

Q: The County’s Public Safety Group sent me an invoice in regards to my PRA request for copies of their three existing contracts with Cal Fire. These records already exist in an electronic/ digital format. There is no reason to charge me a fee for them to be delivered to me via email. They just have to be uploaded into the email. No other public agency has charged a fee for an existing document which

Q: This is two pronged:  I asked the City Clerk multiple times if they had heard from county elections officials if they had verified signatures turned in for a citizen’s ballot initiative. I was told repeatedly they had not yet heard. The next day, they sent me the document from the county showing the signatures had been verified. It was time stamped by the City Clerk shortly before 4 p.m.the previous day. In other words, the city clerk

Q: The School Board announced last night that they had narrowed the field of candidates for superintendent to one finalist when reporting out of closed session. But no vote was taken. The board president emailed me today that they had reached consensus. How can they do that without a vote being taken? Is that legal? A: The Brown Act contains a few narrow exceptions to its general requirement that meetings be open to the public.  One