Attorney Educated on Law at School District

according to the law so the old code it did change I can look up the new number but it's 6253 it says that any member of the public I don't care what service you have what you're using I don't have to wait 10 days so you're more than welcome so Trisha gave you her card you're more than welcome to send her that information and we can send that on to our legal however we were reaffirmed in this um situation that that is not the case that being said this is easy enough for us to prin this is Susan Bassie and I thought Veterans Day would be a good time to drop this video because this is about educating the public when it comes to transparency and public records I decided to go to the locato Saratoga Union High School District to ask for one simple record what record they had related to how and when they raise and lower the flags around the schools a simple question and a good one to ask around Veterans Day hi hi I am doing a public records experiment and I'm teaching some kids about public records and I'm writing a column on it and today I decided that my public records request was going to be for flag memos that tells the school district when to raise and lower flags do you have any of those that I could just take a picture of real quick um let me check okay I just talked to the post office but that's Federal and I don't want to teach Federal I want to teach state so so I would do a public records request to the federal government to local governments for their internal memos about when to raise and lower Flags when and how so so when and how so do they tell you uh lower it on this day but then raise it up again on this day that's what the memo tells you specific dates that's super exciting thank you okay so so this is what the federal guy told me the federal uh post office guy told me that they get memos to I'm just recording what I'm doing see I'm recording in um they told me that they get memos sent to them that tells them when to raise the flag when to lower it how long to leave it lowered and when to put it back up and why they're doing it around what person so I just want to know if because I know that they were just lowered a little while ago I just want to know if you have one that maybe I could just take a picture of real quick um I'm not sure um so you're looking for MOS that would go out regarding anything that you have to instruct somebody to tell them to raise or lower the flag I just want to see a sample of one of those okay let me check on that for you if you want to have a seat right over there I'll I'll just look around instead thanks so you're looking for a memo regarding um our flag procedures yes okay that's probably going to be on our board policy I don't know it offand but if you'd like to stand our lobby area I'll go ahead and start and so what they said is um at the post office the employees get instructions of like an internal memo okay so I'll I'll do the formal records request on you know all the stuff but I just want to see if you have a copy of a memo that I can take a picture of all of our board policies are listed online that's probably going to be the best place to look for that you know off the top of my head I don't know about the policy I know how to find I know how to get those I'm looking specifically somebody had to have sent a memo within the last 30 days or something I don't know if when Diane Feinstein died or whatever when the you lower flags and I just want to see if you have a copy of that so I can show what it looks like uh you know I will go and ask our PR person maybe like through uh the J maybe it gets sent to the janitor or something you know that kind of thing I'll okay right back in case you missed it even though everybody was being very polite I was told to stay off the carpeted area that that wasn't for the public and everybody was uncomfortable that I was recording my work work but I went about recording my work because everything in an office such as this is a public record it tells us a lot of information about that agency and I happen to notice this bookcase that was over in the corner because right now there's so much debate in our country about what books our children can read and what books they can't but what I noticed most was this bookcase in a school district in Silicon Valley had a number of books about science and math and even some literature but there were no books about journalism there were no books teaching students about public records and if you've noticed in Silicon Valley they've been putting all the records into databases so we can no longer just walk in and get information about our government and so I continued to photograph until they returned when we walk into a public agency we have a right to know about the business of that that agency and sometimes we can find that information out through formal records requests but also we have a right under the California state constitution to walk into any public agency and ask for access to records inspect them and copy what we want and yet more and more of these agencies are moving their records into databases and making us have to make a formal request and wait for 10 days and when our records disappear into databases they're not likely to always be requested and so the business and the history of our government disappears in those databases we have a right to know everything about these public agencies how they operate how much we pay for the carpet on the floor how much we pay for the building and all the employees and the elected officials that work in these agencies and when records are not requested that information goes away and so I was making a request that day in person and I followed it up with a formal request a formal request for everything that I saw in that office that I could think of that the public might want to know about let us know that there is no exception that you have to go through the P request and for 10 days I'm going to need the name of that lawyer because that's actually not the law so that means whoever is advising the school district is not advising them according to the law so the old code it did change I can look up the new number but it's 6253 it says that any member of the the woman at the beginning of the video was new on the job and she knew to get a supervisor when she couldn't answer my questions but these two women should have known better they took advice from an attorney that told them that there was no public right to access those public records and that's just wrong and if they didn't know that and they relied on an attorney that's shame on them and of course after I left I made a formal request for the name of that attorney public I don't care what service you have what you're using I don't have to wait 10 days so you're more than than welcome so Trisha gave you her card you're more than welcome to send her that information and we can send that on to our legal however we were reaffirmed in this um situation that that is not the case that being said this is easy enough for us to print where I appreciate that thank you so we're going to chat with lawyers I'm not a big fan of lawyers but we're going to educate the lawyers because the lawyers are supposed to know the law but I do know the law and I know it on public record so I appreciate you guys getting me this the law is very clear that we have a right to access inspect and copy record records it shouldn't have taken this much time and effort and whatever lawyer gave that advice that we weren't allowed to get those records we're going to find out we're going to find out how much they're getting paid and we're going to take some complaints up because no member of the public should ever be made to feel like they're intruding on public employees and elected officials when they're asking for public records are these the board member cards too I I don't see uh Mr Schultz's card and I know he's is a new board member I don't know if you have their contacts I don't have one they just take a while to get their like what what are those MERS all these are HR people and stuff okay but they have email addresses on there right I believe so okay thank this young woman was having her first week in the school district office when I walked in for the public records request I didn't record her because she was doing a good job she called for her supervisor and admitted what she knew and didn't know but when I wrote up the article somebody was very upset that I had posted information about her supervisor's pay which is publicly available and I think that everybody should know what public officials working inside these agencies are doing especially when it comes to serving the public when they are asking for records is great you're getting a public records request uh on your first on your second date and I bet there's people that have worked here for 50 years that never got a public records request so lucky you all I know is go to the website that's the only answer I know well but that's not the public we can't always just tell everybody to go to websites to find the records because not all public records are posted on those websites usually only policies and procedures are posted and we have a right to know about far more than that including how decisions are made about what is being taught to children and what is not being taught to children and what books those kids are going to read in school and who was involved in deciding that these are complicated issues and they dot every school district in our country and it's time for us to pay attention not be adversarial but make sure that the public employees and the public officials who are working in these agencies know the law about public records and are right to get it even if we walk into the office and ask for that access to inspect and copy and we need to let the lawyers know that that is a right and we intend to exercise it it

Channel: Susan Bassi

Views: 30,217

Keywords: Public, School District, Public Meetings, Public Records, Book ban, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Attorney, Law, Lawyer, Audit, First Amendment, Flag

Id: nQKAYh1r7LI

Length: 10min 9sec (609 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 10 2023