April 16, 2012, Visalia. They came into the District 1 courtroom with two handtrucks’ worth of City documents in bankers boxes: two attorneys and Maria Knutson, assistant to the city manager of Lindsay. Nancy Jenner of McCormick, Kabot, Jenner & Lew announced she was representing the City of Lindsay to Judge Melinda M. Reed.
On the other side was Paul Boylan from Davis, a pro bono lawyer who specializes in the law regarding public records, representing Steven Mecum in a lawsuit now more than a year old. The purpose of the suit is injunctive relief, not damages: to get the city to obey the law on public records as part of its remedial course in being accountable to the public.
Boylan had rendered a long list of Mecum’s complaints into 4 points, to which the judge asked Jenner to respond. They were fine points that result in potentially huge obstructions to transparency, and any governing body that was really interested in becoming clear and clean would have resolved the dispute in the first month. But our fair City chose instead to fight, undoubtedly on the advice of their attorney who may have been at least partly responsible in the first place, and whose firm is now charging while “helping” out.
The boxes of documents were just props for the basket Jenner had put all her eggs into: that they could see “little public purpose” in these requests that had become “burdensome” to the city, burdensome to the point of being “oppressive.” That’s why they finally said no to Steven’s March 15, 2011 request. They’d had it.
Beautifully, the Judge Reed responded that “The Public Records act does not address purpose,” and went back to getting answers to the exact questions she asked each party. Later, Jenner attempted another grandstand speech about the burdensome nature of these public records requests, opening the banker boxes’ lids and gesticulating widely. The judge listened sympathetically (after instructing Jenner that she didn’t need to yell,) then basically gave both parties 30 days to do as she’d ruled on all four points and dismissed us.
As I listened to Jenner, I wished I could add my two cents to the pot. If the City thinks it’s been a burden on them having to provide all these public records (not to mention having to learn what the Public Records Act actually says for the first time,) think of us. We’ve had to learn the same in our free time, pay for copies out of our pockets, discover which records to request, trying to pull open a curtain they’re holding shut. After the revelations of the 2009-2010 audit, which gave only a sketch of all that really had been going on, the burden of proof is on them.
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