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Showing 1421 - 1430 of 1525 results

Asked and Answered

CPRA

City misses CPRA request deadlines “due to staff vacancies”?

My friend and I first requested financial records for two affordable housing projects receiving government subsidies on August 19. The City responded on August 27 informing us that due to staff vacancies they could not fulfill our request, and that they would provide a status update by October 1. On September 4, we responded to the […]

October 12, 2015
Asked and Answered

Brown Act

Closed Sessions of City Council Meetings

[…] live, the city council has the closed session portion of the meeting first. This leads the public to believe things on the agenda are being voted on and the decision is made on the item, before the public has the opportunity to comment on the item. Is this legal i.e. holding closed session first? If […]

June 14, 2009
Asked and Answered

First Amendment

If I painted a message on a building I own, can I be charged for creating illegal graffiti?

[…] property, I created political speech by spray painting messages on the side of my building. Even though, I own the building and the City officials know I own it, the city of Baltimore has issued me a housing code violation for graffiti. The artwork has been covered by the news as political speech as well.

October 12, 2015
Asked and Answered

First Amendment

Do Volunteers Working with CA Prisoners Have the Right to Publish Stories About The Experience?

[…] an activist component around mass incarceration? California Code of Regulations Title 15, section 3261.1 specifies that the use of "facilities, staff, inmates" in the writing of books and magazine articles requires prior approval of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) designee– all volunteers must sign paperwork to the effect that they have […]

November 9, 2018
Asked and Answered

Brown Act

Agenda posted online

Can the legislative body of a state-funded entity discontinue sending notice of standing meetings by reasoning that agendas/minutes are posted on its website? To me, it does not meet the requirement that the public's business be conducted in an open a manner as possible.

June 14, 2009
Asked and Answered

CPRA

Agency Claims 90-Day Records Request Response Time

I am requesting records from multiple agencies. and meeting with resistance and run around. In one case, my request passed through three agencies until I was finally told that a response would be forthcoming in 90 days. I questioned the 90 days and below was a response from there legal dept. "Government Code 6253(c) […]

February 14, 2018
Asked and Answered

Brown Act

School Board Trustees meeting with union reps in violation of Brown Act

[…] to my attention that three of the five members on the School Board meet privately with representatives of the teacher's union to discuss items on the agenda for the upcoming board meeting. There are no public notices for these meetings. My feeling is that the board members will find a way around the Brown […]

August 29, 2010
Latest News

Blog Cases

Federal Judge Prevents Enforcement of California’s “IMDb Law” on First Amendment Grounds

[…] federal judge on February 22 issued a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of a California law that sought to prohibit the publication of the ages of actors, producers and others on the popular internet movie database, IMDb. FAC joined several other free-speech advocacy groups in filing a "friend of the court" brief last month opposing […]
- Press Freedom
February 24, 2017
Posts

Public meetings protections remain in place — for now

[…] of government bodies governed by the Brown Act to meet entirely virtually, without regard to emergencies or specific needs of those who choose to perform public service. Newspaper editorial boards sounded the alarms, too: The Mercury News condemned it as a "another step toward local government secrecy," and the Los Angeles Times rightly noted "the Legislature has poked enough […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
- Public Meetings
June 13, 2024
Asked and Answered

CPRA

Giving conditions to public records requests

I am a paid-call firefighter (Volunteer) at a Fire Protection District in the Bay Area. I am writing about and incident that happened to me. I telephoned the district’s secretary and asked if I could see the last six months of minutes from the Board of Directors meetings. She told me that they were […]

June 14, 2009