Remember the entry Dec. 21st quoting a Louisville Courier Journal article about their Attorney General's ruling that public officials must actually try to locate records requested by the public rather than simply ignoring requests? A quote from the LCJ:
Public agencies cannot simply claim records do not exist and they must make a realistic effort to search for them in response to requests under the Kentucky Open Records Law, the attorney general's office said in an opinion released Monday.Well, topping that is this story today from the LA Times, reporting on a California Court of Appeals ruling that "city council members must actually listen when their constituents make official appeals before them." Some quotes from the story:Agencies cannot require those requests be made on specific forms. So long as requests include the legible name, a signature and a description of the records, they must be honored, the opinion said.
It all began with the Blue Zebra, a strip club in East Los Angeles.The 12/30/04 decision, Lacy Street Hospitality Service v. City of LA, is available here. Posted by Marcia Oddi at December 31, 2004 02:31 PMThe owner wanted dancers to keep gyrating past the 2 a.m. closing time. The city's zoning administrator gave his assent. Neighbors objected. And the matter wound up on appeal before the Los Angeles City Council.
When the Blue Zebra's attorney, Roger Jon Diamond, and other interested parties addressed the council, most members paid little attention, as shown on a videotape that Diamond made.
In a sharply worded, six-page decision published Thursday, the state's 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled that the behavior of council members violated the Blue Zebra's right to be heard and ordered the council to hold a new hearing.
"A picture is worth a thousand words," the three-judge panel concluded. "A fundamental principle of due process is 'He who decides must hear.' The inattentiveness of council members during the hearing prevented the council from satisfying that principle." * * *
Diamond's complaint is a common one about Los Angeles City Council members, who until a few years ago even sat with their backs to the public.
Though they now position their comfy leather chairs to face the hard wooden benches set out for the public, many members use their thrice-weekly meetings to read their mail, catch up with one another, make travel arrangements on their laptops or pen a few lines of poetry. * * *
The decision applies to council members only when they are acting in a judicial capacity; when they are passing laws or handing out proclamations, they can be as rude as they please.
The judges stated, "We do not presume to tell the City Council how it must conduct itself as a legislative body" but noted that when making appeals, constituents have a right to "courteous treatment."