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A&A: Are Community College Faculty Senate meetings covered by the Brown Act?

FAC January 30, 2012

Q: I believe Community College Faculty Senates are subject to the Brown Act?  If so, must these bodies disclose how each member voted on an item? I teach at a community college.  My program was asked to make some amendments to an item, otherwise an individual told us she would challenge the matter. We made the amendments. The indivdiual then actually went ahead and challenged the matter at a Faculty Senate open meeting. She also

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A&A: Accessing a school district’s settlement agreements

FAC January 20, 2012

Q: To what extent are school district settlement agreements public when they contain confidential student information? A:  Copies of settlement agreements that school districts enter into are subject to disclosure under the Public Records Act. Although it should generally be possible to draft a settlement agreement without including material so sensitive that it qualifies for an exemption from disclosure under the PRA, it is conceivable that a settlement agreement might contain material legitimately exempt from

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A&A: How long does the agency have to reply to my records request?

FAC January 19, 2012

Q: I requested documents regarding disciplinary action taken against me by my employer, a metro department of transportation. It’s  been more than a month and I’ve not received a reply.  What would be the next course of action? A: The Public Records Act gives local agencies 10 days to respond to a request for a copy of a public record; the time for responding can be extended by the agency for an additional 14 days

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A&A: Are government contractors’ 1099’s disclosable?

FAC January 17, 2012

Q: I am considering a request for the 1099 form issued by a local agency to their general counsel. They are the worst violators of CPRA I have ever experienced. If I do not cite very specific statute and write the request so carefully that virtually all possibilities of misconstruction are eliminated, I will get a “no such records exist,” which is their default answer until they are challenged and provided “clarification.” A: Any qualifying

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A&A: Water agency contractors’ calculations “trade secret”?

FAC January 16, 2012

Q: A county water agency has hired a consultant for a major capital project and has released the feasibility study done by the consultant but has not responded for a request to review the consulting contract itself. This isn’t academic: the agency asserts that the consultants’ excel spread sheet originals containing the actual cell-by-cell math calculations are proprietary to the consultant and the water agency itself isn’t privy to the calculations. Here’s the dilemma: first,

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