CPRA DISCLOSURE: Tight Fiscal Times Strain City Hall, PD Relations

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Dec 7, 2008 | Legal Issue: Public Information | 0 |

In-house correspondence obtained by the Stockton Record under the California Public Records Act reflects how Stockton's financial crisis strained the city administration's relationship with its largest department, reports the newspaper. Disclosed documents included a memorandum from then-Police Chief Tom Morris, who resigned amid rising tension, and an e-mail from Barbara Chavez, the executive assistant at the Police Department and the wife of Mayor Ed Chavez, chastising Human Resources Director Dianna Garcia, the city's chief labor negotiator, for alleged lying and "causing havoc and panic" in labor and budget talks.

E-mails and other correspondenceincluding Morris' notice of retirementwere provided by the city in response to a California Public Records Act request. The correspondence circulated in the month proceeding the City Council's Nov. 6 adoption of deep spending cuts to balance Stockton's crippled budget.

About The Editor

Terry Francke, General Counsel

Terry Francke has a 39-year history of helping journalists, citizens and public officials understand and use their First Amendment and open government rights. With CalAware, Francke has authored comprehensive and authoritative guidebooks to California law on access to government meetings and public records and the news gathering and publication rights of journalists. Focusing on these issues in public forum law, he supervises CalAware's legislative and litigation initiatives; conducts workshops on legal compliance; helps design public records audits; supports local sunshine ordinance drafting efforts; writes CalAware Today, a blog on current developments and proposals in the law and best practices; and answers countless queries by phone and e-mail from citizens, journalists, public officials and employees, and lawyers. Francke previously served 14 years as executive director and general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition, after a 10-year post as legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He has served as an advisory panel member to the National Center on Courts and the Media; taught journalism law at the Department of Communication at Stanford University; and served as an expert contributor to the 1994 major revisions to the Ralph M. Brown Act and the 2004 ballot proposition making open government a basic right of citizens under the California Constitution. Francke is a 1967 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a 1979 graduate of McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Prior to his legal career, Francke worked as a weekly newspaper editor and in military and local government public affairs positions.

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