Public Records Request

Expert Calls Portantino Records Request Denial 'Wrong'

A public records expert described the  recent refusal  of the state government to release information on legislator office budgets "totally wrong" in an interview with Altadena Patch.

The records request was made last month by Altadena's representative, Assemblyman Anthony Portantin, D-La Cañada Flintridge, in an attempt to shed light on Democratic leadership's declaration that Portantino had  exceeded his annual budget  and would have to  furlough staff .

Portantino is claiming that the move to issue furloughs was punishment for being the sole Democrat to vote against the state budget and issued the public records request in an attempt to prove his office budget does not exceed that of other legislators.

Peter Scheer of the First Amendement Coalition said in an interview Wednesday that even if state open records laws did not explicitly suggest that all budget information should be made public, it should be obvious that the public has a right to the information.

"Even if there were no open records law at all you would think that every government official would acknowledge that government budgets are the property of the public," Scheer said.

No Surprise

The move to deny Portantino's request did not come as a surprise to him though, he said.

"Whenever there is something that is potentially embarrassing they will look at the law and interpret something in a ridiculously broad way to justify withholding indisputably public information," Scheer said.

In rejecting the request, the Assembly's Rules Committee chief administrative officer Jon Waldie cited the budget information as being  "correspondence of and to individual Members of the legislature and its staff" and said it could be exempt on the basis of being "preliminary drafts, notes, or legislative memoranda," which are exempt under the California Public Records Act.

Waldie did not return a call from Altadena Patch requesting comment on Wednesday.

Scheer is not the only one to take issue with the ruling: the Sacramento Bee said the denial "defies belief" in an  editorial  published on Wednesday.

Bondi on Public Records Request Involving Ousted Foreclosure Fraud ...

) For the alleged forgery of foreclosure documents. The new AG Pam Bondi took over in January and has since struck a settlement with the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson , while the other investigations remain pending.

Watson recently hired former Broward County Chief Judge Victor Tobin as general counsel.

In May, Joe Jacquot, Bondi’s special counsel, left the AG office to become a senior vice president at LPS. Erin Cullaro, a former assistant AG, went to work for Shapiro & Fishman , one of the law firms under investigation.

Then one week after Jacquot’s move, Bondi’s office dismissed June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards, two of the lead foreclosure fraud investigation attorneys on staff. According to reports, only months earlier both Clarkson and Edwards received stellar grades on their performance reviews.

Rest here…

I see this as a big win, HousingWire reporting on this as they are, since LPS is one of their masters…

I would of expected a different spin from them, but hey, maybe they even see it for what it really is…

Interesting week…

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Public records request and public records law [and] open meeting law

The Mayor of Lexington Avenue

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CFR

Culture of Corruption, Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies