Monterey's recent public records requests

Monterey City Council in  October (Molnar)

Monterey got about 80 public records requests in the last six months with no unified theme among them.

As expected, there are a fair amount of requests from journalists and attorneys.

Gordon Smith of Veterans Wild Fort Ord and environmental attorney Zan Henson had one of the more interesting threads of requests. They both were asking for a lot of information on La Sala's Bi-Rite Market on Casa Verde Way. 

"I represented a neighbor who lived down the street who was concerned that they were expanding their operations and it turned out they were," Henson said today. "So, they cut back some of their outdoor operations." 

No lawsuit was ever filed in the matter. 

Here are the requests: 

Monterey County Sheriff claim continues to fall flat

At the height of the Monterey County sheriff's primary, I made a California Public Records Act request for documents related to a claim that eventually came out in a last minute attack -- That Sheriff Scott Miller had several official complaints against him.

According to my recently-received response, the Sheriff's Office had 11 complaints with the county Equal Opportunity Office. Of these, seven cases were based on race, national origin and/or gender and four cases complained of discrimination based upon disability and age.

The only thing it proves is the office had complaints, not Miller. Also, there is no way of telling what they were about exactly.

The Californians for Law and Order group, run by a former GOP Central Coast leader, claimed in advertisements Miller has had "13 charges filed for sexual harassment and discrimination" against him.

No evidence has ever been produced to validate that claim.

Here is what Miller wrote about complaints against him at the time:

"None have been shown to have any factual merit," he wrote, "Most of them have been abandoned or lie dormant. The majority of the claims were filed by disgruntled former employees."

I figured this was worth a blog post because 1) It likely will come up again in the campaign and 2) for how long it took my request (attached below) to be filed.

I made the request to the County Counsel's office May 14. I did not get a response until last week.

No explanation was given as to why it took 44 business days to get a response, but I did get an apology. I've never had an issue with County Counsel Charles McKee or his staff; They are usually fast and helpful with requests.

Under California law, public entities have a maximum of 24 days to release records, give a date for their release or explain what exemption allows it to not release it.

I made another request for something else related to the campaign on April 24 and have not received the information I asked for. McKee said they are working on it.

Last week, Miller's challenger in the November election, Steve Bernal, received the endorsement of the Deputy Sheriffs Association. Although it is unclear how much that means to voters, Bernal was very pleased and said it would give his campaign momentum.


PRAR - Molnar 07-15-14.pdf

Fort Ord vets cemetery: No public meeting planned

There is no public meeting planned to discuss the recently-released Fort Ord veterans cemetery plans, according to the California Department of Veterans Affairs.

The state is not required to hold the meeting, but its absence has increased fear among the Keep Fort Ord Wild, or KFOW, group that the project will get "rubber stamp" approval.

If the state would have done a much longer environmental impact report, instead of an environmental assessment, it would have needed to have a public meeting, according to the California Environmental Quality Act.

KFOW, which plans to ask the state for a full environmental impact report, found about the lack of a meeting through a public records request.

The group gave the response to its CPRA request to The Herald. A few things of note:

• The two agencies who will ultimately approve the environmental assessment are the state Department of Veterans Affairs and the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. 
• The representatives for the agencies are David Gerard, CalVet assistant deputy secretary, and George Eisenbach, director of the VA's cemetery grant services program. 
• All appeals on whatever the state VA decides will be handled by the Governor's Office of Planning & Research.
• The state plans to respond to public comments received during the public comment period (accepted until July 18). 

The public will be able to get updates on the Central Coast Veterans Cemetery in two weeks. The Fort Ord Veterans Issues Advisory Committee meets July 24 at 920 2nd Ave. in Marina. It typically meets at 3 p.m., although an agenda has yet to be posted. 

At the meetings there is always an update on the cemetery and representatives from the state VA, state Sen. Bill Monning's office, Rep. Sam Farr's Office and the Presidio of Monterey attend. 

The 629-page draft environmental assessment for the cemetery is available online or at the Seaside Library at 550 Harcourt Ave. or Marina Library at 190 Seaside Circle. 

After more than 20 years of work, cemetery organizers hope they can meet federal deadlines to begin the project in late fall. Besides KFOW, the only other public opposition to the project has come from the Oholone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation which contends the cemetery land is on its indigenous homeland.

"Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation objects to all excavation in known cultural lands, even when they are described as previously disturbed and of no significant archaeological value," wrote Esselen chairwoman Louise Miranda Ramirez to the state.

Ramirez said Monday afternoon by phone it sends a similar letter to all Fort Ord projects because it considers the former base part of its land. Its effort to build an 80-room hotel, wellness center and cultural center has stalled out of concerns a casino could be built -- Despite the tribe voting not to build a casino and saying they are willing to sign an agreement with the county it would not build a casino. 

Fort Ord Gambling: Part One

In early June, I was doing a lot of stories that included a discussion of gambling on the county's former Army base and one question kept bothering me.

Officials at the Fort Ord Reuse Authority told me a horse race track would be OK with its current anti-gambling policy because it was considered "a sport."

I began to wonder: "Are they just saying that? Or is there some basis for it?"

So I made a California Public Records Act request for, basically, any time FORA discussed gambling in its history. I got so many documents back I needed to split this one up into several posts.

Included here are my response letter, documents related to a 1995 to 1996 saga between Monterey and the authority over gambling and a letter from then-Mayor Dan Albert about the whole ordeal.

In the second document make sure to check out pages 14 to 15 which describes the laws (at that time) on horse racing. It actually explains how a local district could stop a horse track (which I would think something Measure M folks have probably already explored).

I know there is a lot of interest in this subject, so I hope someone finds use of this material. More coming next week ...




Fort Ord gambling 3 -
Fort Ord gambling 2 -
Fort Ord gambling 1 -

Salinas: Jose Castañeda's $2,300 travel bill

The Salinas City Council seems to get plenty of ink in local papers, especially Mayor Joe Gunter and Councilman Jose Castañeda.

It even looks like both men could be subject to a recall election next year.

So I decided it would be a good idea to check in on their reimbursement forms. Although Castañeda racked up a hefty travel bill, an article was a tough sell because all of his trips had been approved by the city council.

I don't regularly cover Salinas so I might have missed something here. Below you can check out both men's forms from Dec. 19, 2012, to April 11, 2013.



Jose Castaneda 1 -
Joe Gunter -

Monterey City Council wants taxpayers to pay for ...

Monterey City Council members asked to be reimbursed for more than $3,000 from January 2011 to May 2013.

They asked for everything from plane tickets to business cards.

I could not find anything troubling about any of the purchases and compared to a lot of municipalities and cities I've covered, it seemed like Monterey politicians were a little more careful with this kind of thing.

I did find it a bit odd Nancy Selfridge had to buy her own business cards. Also, it looked as if Frank Sollecito had asked to be reimbursed for a ticket to an art event which, at least on the surface, appeared to be for his wife.

At the end of the day, it was only for $30 and hardly worth clearing the front page.

 Check it out for yourself:    
Monterey City Council -

My love of public records requests and thoughts on FOIA Machine

Hello and welcome to my new blog.

One of my passions is open government and I enjoy making public records requests, so I decided to share my adventures with you here on this site.

I was lucky when I started as a reporter at the New Jersey Herald that I had someone show me the ropes (Seth Augenstein) but have had to learn a whole to new skill set with all the federal entities in Monterey.

New Jersey's Open Public Records Act is one of the most progressive public records laws in the country, allowing people to get an answer in seven days. I even wrote this story for its 10th birthday.

California's law is pretty weak in comparison. A public entity has a maximum of 24 days to release records, give a date for their release or explain what exemption allows them not to release it.

That brings me to the big, bad Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. I've thought up some better names for it: Frowned on Instantaneously Act, Forgot or Ignored Act, Free-reign on Information Abolishing, Fallacy of Information Assumption. You get the point.

I actually find filing FOIAs really easy. You just go to FOIA.gov, click on "FOIA Contacts" at the top of the page and scroll down to the department you want. The problem is it can take months to get a response and you need to call and harass them.

There's a recent Kickstarter campaign for something to make FOIA requests easier. It is called the "FOIA Machine" and has raised $53, 503 so far. I think it has some good features - a reminder to call federal entities, a way to share requests and a feature that connects to social media - but something I doubt I would use.

FOIA.gov already does a great job of pointing you in the right direction and I fear FOIA Machine's function to alert me when I might have made a mistake would be a bad thing. Some of my best requests have involved something I unintentionally got.

Having said that, I don't actually have access to the software so I can't say it won't be useful for the public and it is run by the Center for Investigative Reporting, which has been doing some really great stuff lately.

Tomorrow I will begin digging into the treasure trove of requests. My goal with Open to the Public is to share documents I could not necessarily make into a story but may be useful to someone out there.