Here's mine: About 15 years ago, I moved into a new neighborhood. I was a little surpised to learn who my legislators were upon re-registering to vote.

So, I obtained a copy of the legislative districts (which is public information) and found that my house had been placed in the wrong areas. Now, we were literally right on the district line (I think it was about 20 feet west of my mailbox), and I understand that mistakes can be made.

However, when I called the county registar-recorder's office to ask that they put my residence in the correct turf, the person on the phone started asking me how I got that information--as if I was reading state secrets to her. We ended up in a big shouting match.

A supervisor called me later and apologized; it turned out that not only was my house in the wrong place, but my entire neighborhood (85-100 homes) was as well--which the Registrar's office fixed pretty quickly.

Jen, you'll remember this one. When Jen and I were participating in a statewide audit of how police stations handle public records requests, many locations shocked us with their violations of the law. An officer can ask someone making a public records request for their name and number, but the California Public Records Act prohibits officers from *requiring* people to identify themselves. At the Covina station, however, an officer told me I could not submit a written request unless I allowed her to photocopy my drivers license. Yeah, not so legal. When my editors got a call from her the next day, we realized that she had taken it upon herself to investigate who I was and track down my work number. That really doesn't encourage a sense of safety for people who want to make an anonymous records request.

Frankly, I have never had a bad experience with government agencies responding to my public records requests. They have always been prompt, responded within 10 days, and provided complete information. In general, mine has been a wonderfully bright, sun-shiny experience.... NOT! Actually, out of the dozens of requests I have made, I can count the number of responses within 10 days on one (OK maybe two) hands, and I have to generally follow up because half the time the information provided does not even include what I requested in the first place.

A couple of experiences come to mind for me, but the most frustrating one probably comes out of South El Monte.

When reporter Jennifer McLain and I were working on the travel expenses story for cities in the San Gabriel Valley, we sent out records requests to about 16 different cities asking for travel policies and all receipts having to do with travel for council members.

A couple of the cities — including South El Monte — didn’t receive our requests the first time around, so we sent another batch.

Well, I think I must have faxed South El Monte about a handful of requests, all of which they claimed to have never received. Finally, about two weeks before the story ran, I faxed one last request over and called them letting them know that if we didn’t get the information, we would have to run the story with an explanation of why.

A couple days before the story published, I spoke with a woman in the City Clerk’s office who seemed a bit distraught, and claimed she had received the request but had been very busy — she goes to school at night — and wasn’t going to be able to get my documents in time so I finally just asked her for the total budget for the year.

Needless to say, South El Monte had one of the highest travel budgets — $60,000 — equal to that of La Puente.

I had the same experience with South El Monte, Tania. I feel you. Funny they took so long though, because I had sent requests for basically the same thing you did just a few months before. I sent fax after fax and copies of the original requests by mail and was given so many excuses - no time, no resource to look for the, the records don't exist (yeah, can you believe that!). Finally, I was told I would have to come down to the office when the person responsible for the records was available and I couldn't get copies, I would just have to write down what I needed while someone else in the office watched over me. It was ridiculous. And even then, that was only half of my request. The other request was handed off to the city manager which never followed up with me.

Two words: Pomona Courthouse. If the person has been in court within two weeks of the day I ask for a record, there is trouble. I have to ask to speak to supervisors, refuse to leave, etc. etc.

Then, the supervisors make it seem like they are doing me a favor by fetching a record out of a court room, even though it isn't even on schedule for several days.

Even with being insistent, about a quarter of the time I have been asked to come back on another day when my request is easier to deal with (i.e. a day where no one has to get on the elevator and go into a court room to get a file).

It is usually faster to skip the clerk's office and go directly to the courtroom and ask them to let you read the file, though some court clerks won't allow this.

Well it is actually good to see that the news industry is suffering the same experiences that the average citizen endures. While I am not a reporter, I will offer my worst experience....the City of Glendora.
I placed a request, in writing, on multiple occasions to the city clerk, city manager and city attorney. The city response was to simply ignore the request. Most of the records related to a proposed assessment that was pending. Finally, I filed a lawsuit and even after being served, the city failed to provide the records! They didn't claim an exemption, they didn't ask for additional time...they simply ignored the request!
Thankfully, filing the suit resulted in the production of the records, a variety of changes in how the city handles requests, a reduction in the fees charged for copies, etc. Oh, and the court directed the city to pay all of my legal fees.
This is just the short version, but you get the idea of what length city officials will go to simply NOT follow the law.
You involved in the news industry have always been the advocates for the average citizen when it comes to open government....keep up the good work and don't take no for an answer when it comes to public records!

I may not have a frustrating experience to tell, but I love South El Monte's excuses for BREAKING THE LAW!!! It's a damn law, people! "I've been busy" isn't a valid excuse under Cal. Gov't Code Secs. 6250 to 6276.48.