Audit and Finance Committee Public Record Act Citizen Complaint #c4-02/03 Reason for the Report a complaint was made

Although the complaint was made against the County Counsel it should have been directed to the Auditor-Controller. Response to F1: The respondent disagrees wholly with the finding. The County attempts to insure that a public records request is responded to by the appropriate county departments, regardless of where the request was originally directed. Often a request asks for a variety of records that may be maintained by several departments, in which case each department may respond separately or the responses may be coordinated, whichever is more appropriate. In this case, the original request for payments to a specific law firm was directed to the Auditor- Controller, who responded in accord with County policy by providing a summary of the payments and dates, but did not release the raw bills because they contain information that the Board of Supervisors has previously determined to contain information protected by the attorney-client privilege that cannot be released. A later request was made to County Counsel’s Office which responded on behalf of Risk Management by advising that Risk had no records. Since it appears that the requests were answered appropriately, then no complaint was justified against either official. 15

The Public Record Act request was submitted in February 1999 but the complaint was made in February 2002, this request had not been satisfactorily answered. Response to F2: The respondent disagrees wholly with the finding. The two records requests were responded to properly. The complainant may not have been satisfied with the information received because it did not assist in her litigation against the County, but the complainant received a full and accurate response that contained everything that should be legally divulged. There is no specific time limit in the Public Records Act for production of documents. The nature of the request, for privileged documents relating to then-pending litigation at a time when the accounting system was undergoing a conversion process, in large part determined the nature and timing of the response.

On December 31, 2001, the Auditor-Controller furnished an accounting spreadsheet to the complainant showing all payments made to The Firm, but never identified a payment associated with The Firm’s start date of summer of 1995. Response to F3: The respondent agrees with the finding. The complainant received a full and accurate summary of all payments made to the law firm, so the complainant could determine which payments were associated with certain events or dates.