Anybody can request and review public records, and the state has a broad definition of what is a public record. If you text me on my personal cell to complain about the way my colleague — your representative — voted, that’s a public record somebody can demand to see.
I’ve filed PRA requests from the City, and other cities, over the years. I think cities should go a step further, and publish on their website everything handed over from a PRA request, so anybody can look through them.
This “Jane Ventura” request was massive. Everything on every possible account on the Chamber of Commerce, their State of The City fundraiser, cannabis, and my Rincon Roundtables. Oh and charter amendments. And it’s legal but maybe unprecedented that whoever submitted it used a fake name.
When I filed a PRA request asking for all city emails that referred to a winery, I was told thousands of emails met that criterion and could I please explain what I was looking for so they could narrow the results? Which of course I did.
Nobody else received a demand from “Jane Ventura.”
You can view the documents here.
Couple notes, there’s a whole piece that is redacted as attorney-client privilege. That was me, sharing with a reporter, something the City Manager sent to all council members. Plus, emails I sent to our city attorney — nothing that the city attorney wrote to me. It’s things I could have put in an open letter and shared with the world. There’s nothing I haven’t said to a dozen different people about the whole State-of-The-City blusterduck.
There’s another section that says it’s redacted for deliberative process reasons. That’s me, writing to a Councilmember.
