PUBLIC INFORMATION: Baldwin Park Sued for Project Records

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Dec 1, 2008 | Legal Issue: Public Information | 0 |

The Whittier Daily News reports that a group called the Community Alliance for Redevelopment Accountability filed suit under the California Public Records Act on November 18 against the City of Baldwin Park, alleging unlawful withholding of public documents, failing to respond to certain requests and incompletely fulfilling others.

According to the complaint, the records requests date back for months and largely deal with documents related to Bisno Development Co.'s failed downtown redevelopment project. City officials announced last week Bisno was dropping its plans because it could not fund the project.

Plaintiff's attorney Robert Silverstein said, "We want to know exactly what was going on behind those closed doors and we think a lot more dirty little secrets from the city are going to come out."

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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