Funneling Azusa public records requests

Azusa approved a new ordinance last night that changed their rules regarding the request of public records.

The new rule of law forces all public record requests concerning the city go through the city clerk's office.

The city is pursuing this course of action to avoid further lawsuits. Apparently, according to the staff report, a "man" has been calling whoever he can within the city that might not know the full laws concerning public records requests. He then makes requests to those persons, verbally, and if and when they don't meet the demands in time, he files a lawsuit.

The new law makes all those requests go through the city clerk and encourages all requests to be written. It cannot state that requests must be written.

I shot an e-mail over to Terry Francke, general counsel for California Aware, and he said the ordinance is in good order and perfectly legal for the city to do.

He did question its use with reporters calling police to beat check, and also felt the word "oral" was more appropriate than the word "verbal."

Here is a link to the ordinance's language and proposal.

When I get the chance to talk to the city, I hope to find out who the "man" is.