FAC

A&A: City Records–what does the CPRA say on security, period of retention, availability?

Q: I’m investigating a lax building code and the permitting procedures of my city’s Building Department, for several specific examples. I have examples, where there is ongoing construction and periodic remodeling done, without original permits or follow up ! The remodeling is incremental but , the accumulation, of ad-on, over the years is substantial! The request was sent to the City Clerk who was identified as the CPRA spoke person. There is a good indication of an under the table “pay-off.”

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A&A: Does the Brown Act allow closed session negotiations for all public school contracts?

Q: Does the Brown Act allow a publicly elected school board to hold closed session discussion under Government Code 54957 (Public Employee Appointment/Employment) and 54957.6 (Labor Negotiations) regarding the appointment and pay structure of a Director of Curriculum to the position of Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services. Both positions are administrative positions that report directly to the Superintendent of the District and do not report to, or have direct supervision by the board. The pay is set

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A&A: Police say daily crime logs can’t be released to the public

Q: I have been seeking release of daily crime logs through the Police Department, preferably the day they are issued. The log is maintained by a patrol officer for 24-hour periods between 4 a.m. and 4 a.m. and through CPRA request have successfully obtained past logs electronically in .doc or .pdf format. However, the department Public Information Officer (PIO )has refused to provide the daily log when requested claiming they need to be double-checked for accuracy

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A&A: CPRA request won’t be fulfilled unless we show documents we’ve already received

Q:  One of my reporters put in a PRA request with a law enforcement agency. It has asked to see the documents we have obtained so that it can know what key words to search. I don’t think we should do that, but the office is saying we won’t get the documents we need unless we honor their request. Another reporter filed a PRA with the same law enforcement agency. She received some documents, but there are

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A&A: Animal shelter won’t disclose contact info on local cat trapper

Q: Our local county animal shelter take trapped cats from the public. Sometimes the cats that are trapped belong to others. As a cat rescue, we attempt to identify situations like this, and seek to return them to their owner. In a recent incident, the trapping person refused to give the address where the cat was trapped. We would like to talk to the trapper and see if we can resolve the situation before the cat

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