The state flag of California flies underneath the American flag on the west side of the Laney College campus. Behind, the Tribune Tower, which once housed Oakland's daily print newspaper, sits in the city skyline. Both California and the United States have open government laws that establish the public's right to information, but the Peralta Community College District consistently lags behind in comprehensively fulfilling requests for public information made by student journalists at The Citizen. (Photo: Li Khan/The Citizen)
Last year, The Citizen filed a lawsuit against the Peralta Community College District (PCCD) over six outstanding public records requests. The suit caught the attention of The San Francisco Chronicle, Inside Higher Ed, and EdSource, and was a factor in the Student Press Law Center’s decision to honor The Citizen with the inaugural Student Freedom of Information Award.
On Oct. 6, The Citizen signed a settlement agreement with PCCD, after receiving several records that were at the heart of our public records dispute. In honor of the sixth annual Student Press Freedom Day, we’re here to look back on our three-year-long pursuit of public records and share what we learned.
Our investigation into the records we received is still ongoing. We’ll shine a light on the new findings during Sunshine Week, a national celebration of the public’s right to information that’s held every year in March.
What is a public record and why does it matter?
By law, any documents related to a public institution in California must be accessible to the public, unless specifically exempted by the law. Public records law varies by state. A public institution can be a state or local government agency, as well as publicly funded institutions, such as public colleges and universities. A California Public Records Act request may also be referred to as a PRA, CPRA, or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. By law, institutions must respond to the request within ten days.
Public access to government documents is key to transparency in governance. It’s important, for example, to know who is contributing to city official campaigns, whether a business you want to patron has a proper license, or how public funds are being spent.
Why we filed suit
In the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, and the national conversations about police brutality and criminal justice reform that followed, PCCD made a historic decision not to renew its contract with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and begin its transition to a community-based safety model.
The transition is still ongoing. PCCD’s current Chancellor Tammeil Gilkerson stated at a meeting of the Board of Trustees on Feb. 14 of this year that the district is continuing to work on developing its safety and wellness program.
The Citizen has covered this transition extensively. We dove deeply into the three firms the district originally selected to provide community-based security services. In December 2020, Citizen reporters David Rowe and Pamela Rudd discovered that two vendors, who were set to receive a total of $6.2 million in public funds, did not hold the necessary licenses provide security services in California.
That raised an important question to us: how and why were these security vendors selected? We asked this question in the form of multiple Public Records Act requests (PRAs), but got incomplete answers.
After years of frustration, multiple follow-ups, and two final notices, The Citizen filed a lawsuit to enforce the complete production of six outstanding public records requests. These included PRAs submitted by other staff members.
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