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  • Asked and Answered

    Brown Act

    Planning a Closed Session to Allow Confidential Documents

    For a lawsuit between two city board members and the city board, which is run as a corporation, the parties have reached an agreement to allow the board members to access documents in closed session so that it will be covered under the Brown Act. Can a government entity plan a session to […]

    June 14, 2009

  • Asked and Answered

    First Amendment

    Defamation and libel in statements to elected officials

    […] in the initiation of any governmental proceeding (such as a city council meeting), such as a city council meeting, is absolutely privileged and cannot form the basis for a lawsuit.  See, e.g., Cayley v. Nunn, 190 Cal. App. 3d 300, 303 (1987) ("the privilege ... applies to local city council proceedings."); Scott v. McDonnell […]

    June 14, 2009

  • Posts

    A Guide to 2023 Open Meetings Law Changes

    […] lawmakers increased the ability of members of both local and state bodies to participate remotely — pandemic-inspired policy that set off debates about whether such increased flexibility for public officials would result in less accountability to the public. Additional changes include a bill that allows the presiding member of a body governed by the […]

    February 16, 2023

  • Asked and Answered

    Brown Act CPRA

    Are a city manager’ meetings with his staff covered by the Brown Act?

     Recently I learned our City Manager approved the implementation of a significant change to a public fee-paid service without presenting it for a city council review or approval, thus also without ever notifying the affected public as a whole or the media of the change. Impacted residents were individually notified to comply with the […]

    January 18, 2015

  • Asked and Answered

    CPRA Newsgathering School Records

    State university won’t disclose student cafeteria workers’ pay

    […] is open only to enrolled students is protected and not disclosable as part of the student's educational record. We can provide you with the rate of pay for a particular position but not for a specific person or the payroll over a specific period of time. Given your request, I am seeking this rate […]

    June 14, 2014

  • Latest News

    Advocacy Blog

    Update on open-government legislative proposals in Sacramento

    AB 1978 AB 1978, a Bill that would have closed public access to ‘basemap’ data for Geographic Information Systems (GIS), put forth by Assemblymember Jose Solorio, was dropped after opposition from the GIS/GeoData and freedom of information communities. GIS "basemap" data is used to create the base layer for all local computer mapping. The […]

    June 6, 2009

  • Asked and Answered

    CPRA Police Records

    Accessing Police Reports on Investigations

    […] public entities are presumed to be public unless one of the Act's enumerated exceptions to disclosure applies. Government Code section 6254(f) sets forth the so-called "law enforcement" exemption, which allows law enforcement agencies (such as a city police department) to withhold, among other things, records of complaints and investigatory records.  This exemption does not, […]

    June 14, 2009

  • Latest News

    Press Release

    California First Amendment Coalition to Tell Congressional Commission that China’s Internet Censorship Violates WTO Treaties

    […] by U.S. technology companies in internet censorship, and the application of WTO treaties to the "Great Firewall," as China's censorship system has come to be known. Testifying for CFAC is Gilbert Kaplan, a trade law expert in Washington, who represents CFAC in its WTO initiative. In briefings to the US Trade Representative (USTR), the […]

    June 3, 2009

  • Asked and Answered

    First Amendment

    Changing search warrant policy

    […] search warrant policy where the affiants or other law enforcement officer who is filing the search warrant redacts information from the warrant in order to reduce the work of the exhausted and overworked court clerks. Items redacted include vehicles searched, addresses searched, and persons being searched.  The clerk’s office has the redacted files for viewing.

    June 14, 2009

  • Asked and Answered

    Accessing A Prison Visit Audio Transcript in Maine

    I am helping a former inmate in Maine write a documentary on his case and we are trying to access a recording or a transcript of two conversations: the first took place at the prison and the second was a phone call that was made by the inmate from prison. We attempted to access […]

    March 6, 2020