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Palo Alto City Council

City of Palo Alto


Palo Alto, CA 94301
Cc: City Manager
Subject: City of Palo Alto Response To Public Records Requests
Elected Council Members:
The recent Santa Clara Grand Jury investigation of Palo Alto government transparency
was not particularly flattering of the current City Manager, or the City Councilwhich
presumably has the role of government oversight in all areas of City operations. While
the Civil Grand Jury spend considerable time dealing with the almost secret Arrillaga
proposed project at 27 University Avenue, it failed to do much more than pay lip service
to the problems with Public Information Requests, in my opinionrequesting
performance data for only 2013, and not any years prior to that point. The Grand Jury
seemed to have done little with the log sent to it, in response to a request for such data.
Unfortunately, Grand Juries are not seated with IT professionals, or even people with any
significant organizational experience. So, it is perhaps to be expected that they did not
understand the issue at hand.
I requested the same data provided the Grand Jury (in Excel format), to better understand
exactly what the Grand Jury was looking at. Given that the data was in a spreadsheet
format, some simple calculations were possible, which are provided in Table.1
Additionally, the actual PIR log sent to the Grand Jury is offered to the Council via
Appendix A.

2013 City of Palo Alto Public Records Requests


Response Performance Statistics
Performance
Stats
Requests
Processed
No
Description
Requests With
Indeterminate
Processing
Time
Max.
Processing
Time
Min.
Processing
Time
< 10 Day
Response
% < 10 Day
Response
Number of 1Day Reponses
# Unique
Requestors
Number Days
City Hall Open
PI Requests
Per Business
Day
Max.
Requests Per
Requestor

Numb
er

71

Units
Reques
ts
Reques
ts

26

Days

56

Days

106

1
54
50.9%

Days
Reques
ts
Reques
ts

29

Days

93

People

221
0.5

Days
Reques
ts Per
Day

Reques
ts

Table.1
Questions
1) Why cant the City Clerk provide Department Performance Data like Table.1
(above) to the Council, so that everyone can understand how effectively, or
ineffectively, the City is responding to its legal obligations of providing
information to the public?
2) How many of the PIRs were answered by links to the Citys WEB-site, making
the one day turnarounds not particularly difficult to accomplish?
3) When is the City Council going to become concerned about the Citys handling of
PIRs?

4) Why cant the City Clerk keep better records related to PIR handling?
5) Why didnt the City Clerk provide the Grand Jury better data about PIR handling?

Observations
The following comments about PIR handling by the City of Palo Alto were many by City
Manager Keene-http://www.paloaltoonline.com/print/story/2014/06/27/city-slammed-for-lack-oftransparency-on-arrillaga-proposals
He [City Manager Keene] defended the city's responses to public-records requests, saying
that the city receives "many requests for information every single day and we do a really
good job of responding to the public." He said the city has recently added a webpage for
people to formally file and track public-records requests.

does not seem to be supported by the data projected to the Grand Jury by the City.
The current PIR submission form, which can be found on the Citys WEB-site, does
not provide any meaningful feedback, and can not be used for tracking PIRs, no matter
who the submitter might be. As noted in a previous email to the Council, the City of
Oakland seems to have adopted software that is worthy of study, and possibly, adoption.
Conclusion
The City of Palo Alto received, on average, one Public Information Request every two
business days in 2013. The City was able to respond to only about 50% of these requests
in the legally mandated ten days, based on the data provided the Santa Clara County Civil
Grand Jury. Regrettably, the Civil Grand Jury did not seem to be very interested in long
term problems with the City of Palo Altos handling of Public Information Requests
looking for data only for 2013.
The data derived from the Citys data, provided in this communication, would be of more
value to the Council, and public, if the data provided to the public by the City Clerk were
more accurate, in a consistent format, and complete in all of its details.
It is very difficult to accept the claims of the City Manager that Palo Altos response to
Public Information Requests is great, based on this simple analysis, particularly since
several of my own requests are now years oldwith little hope of ever being answered
short of litigation to force the City to comply with the law.
Wayne Martin
Palo Alto, CA
www.scribd.com/wmartin46
www.youtube.com/wmartin46
www.twitter.com/wmartin46

Appendix APublic Information Request Log For 2013 For Palo


Alto, CA.

DATE OF
REQUEST
1/8/2013

REQUESTOR

COMPLETION
DATE

Aaron Dolgin

9/29/2013

Alison Cormack

3/4/2013

Andrea Kopecky

REGARDING

Elapsed
Process
ing
Days

643 Maybell

??

9/30/2013

3/7/2013

6/19/2013

Andy Wright

6/19/2013

9/26/2013

August Weiss

10/1/2013

9/26/2013

Ausra Gaigalaite

9/26/2013
10/23/201
3
1/4/13
and
1/18/13

Ben Ludwig

9/26/2013

Ben Vassar

10/23/2013

2/4/2013

Breen Kerr

Bidocean

UAC/CC Info

1/7/13 and 1/22/13

??

Main Library

460's

??

4/11/2013

Breena Kerr

CC Travel

??

7/12/2013

Breena Kerr

7/12/2013

Measure C Docs

9/19/2013

Breena Kerr

10/3/2013

Traffic Study PM

14

2/11/2013

Carmel Naraval
Cassandra
Raveena
Catherine Blue
Holmes

2/11/2013

6/28/2013

8/23/2013

9/12/2013

9/23/2013

Charlotte Rubio
Connie
Nishikawa

9/24/2013

2/22/2013

Conor Kelly

2/27/2013

Sherman

2/6/2013

Conor Kelly

2/27/2013

Sheridan

21

6/26/2013
8/21/2013
9/11/2013

3/17/2013

Dennis Wallach

5/20/2013

Dennis Wallach

6/27/2013

Devin Ralston

5/15/2013

Dillan Betts

8/26/2013

Dillan Betts

9/23/2013

9/10/2013

Dixie

9/10/2013

10/7/2013

Doug Petersen

10/7/2013

Dustin Alamo

1/11/2013

1/8/2013

?
Invoked extension

6/28/2013
Smart Procure

Smart Procure

28
1
1

Main Library

8/29/2013

Edwina Feguis

??

4/15/2013

Ericka meaner

1/29/2013

Evelyn Gutierrez

6/11/2013

FOIA Group

6/28/2013

17

6/17/2013

Frank Ruiz

6/19/2013

2/28/2013

Greg Kerber

3/4/2013

2/4/2013

PAMC 9.48.025

??

SEUI

4/30/2013

Hana Hsaio

5/10/2013

5/16/2013

6/27/2013

Hank Steelsmith
Hannah
Palkowitz

3/26/2013

Holly Lee

3/26/2013

4/22/2013

Janis Roller

4/22/2013

5/14/2013
9/9/2013

Jason Green
Jason McCormick

5/15/2013
9/9/2013

Tax Form

1
1

9/9/2013

Jason McCormick

9/18/2013

Prometheus

Jay Enbom

7/1/13 (?)

Fiber Optic /
Interstate / SCCO

??

2/14/2013

Jeff Falbo

2/25/2013

uncashed checks

11

7/8/2013

Jeff Koch

7/30/2013

6/28/13

8/12/2013

Jeff Levinsky

7/11/2013
7/8/2013

??
6

7/8/2013

11

22
1

Jenn Nowell

8/13/2013
7/17/13 and
8/12/13

Jenn Nowell

7/15/2013

Jennie Skelton

3/14/2013

Jim Phelps

3/21/2013

16

3/11/2013

Joe

3/11/2013

6/17/2013

Joe Maulsby

6/24/2013

2/11/2013

Joseph Gennero

2/12/2013

7/26/2013

Joy Ogawa

8/19/2013

2/22/2013

Jusztima Traum

3/18/2013

Prevailing Wage

Kathleen O'Brien

10/1/2013

Org Chart

??

Kathleen O'Brien
Kathrine
Waterhouse

9/30/2013

P&P Surplus

19

6/7/2013

9/11/2013

Kelson Warner

9/20/2013

3/11/2013

Kenneth Hadler

3/20/2013

9/24/2013

Kirk Brown

9/24/2013

5/8/2013

3/11/2013
4/24/13
and
5/16/13
3/5/2013

9/11/2013
6/6/2013

Jennifer Fryling

??
Minutes

24
24

5/1/2013

Laura Connolly

4/5/2013

Lisa Mahlum
Mark PetersenPerez
Mark PetersenPerez
Mark PetersenPerez
Mark PetersenPerez

6/24/2013

12

7/30/2013

6/3/2013
6/12/2013
7/29/2013
7/23/2013

Firearms SFCO
6/3/2013

8/2/2013

4/4/2013

Mary Caddy

4/10/2013

3/28/2013

Mary Harris

4/1/2013

3/12/2013

Mel Sakata

3/18/2013

2/28/2013

Michael Collins

6/5/2013

Michael Collins

After 3/14/2013
7/1/2013

??

10
6
Ravi Mehti

4
6
??
26

9/6/2013

Michel Lopez

8/28/2013
10/29/201
3

Michel Vogel

4/1/2013

MJ Pierce

1/22/2013

Mr. Austin
Mr. Peele/ Bay
Area News
Group

1/23/2013

Nadia Aziz/Grant
Kolling/Morris

9/30/2013
9/13/2013
9/16/2013
4/4/2013

9/19/2013

10/29/2013

??
??

Numerous
different ones
regarding
Homeless

??
??

9/20/2013
Invoked extension

Pat Marriott

2/26/2013

4/17/2013

Patricia Bilir

6/12/2013

1/21/2013

Peter Singleton

2/13/2013

8/30/2013

14
Compensation

2/25/2013

3/5/2013

??
1

4/15/2013

Nick Selby
Nielson
Buchanan
Norman Beamer
Padmanabhan
Srinagesh

13
Various contracts

ROLUA

PA Hill GC and CC

??
1

Matadero Creek

56
23

Phelps

??

Ravi Madhu

9/3/2013

5/8/2013

Richard Hopp

5/9/2013

3/6/2013

Richard Placone

4/17/2013

Matadero Creek

10/8/2013

Ron Baker

10/8/2013

FPPC

9/16/2013

Rosalie Govek

9/16/2013

4/24/2013

Scott Brooks
Seunggyoun
Hong

10/1/2013
5/8/2013
1/31/2013

42
1
1

5/7/2013

13
PD Record

Stephanie Wong

??
??

7/1/2013

Steve Eglash
Steven
Rosenberg

1/5/2013

Ted Carlstrom

8/29/2013

Todd Emanuel

9/9/2013

11

6/1/2013
10/10/201
3

Tom Bates

6/4/2013

Tom Garber

7/1/2013

Tony Ciampi

8/21/2013
7/11/2013

Trish Mulvey
Vera DahleLacaze

6/4/2013

William Ross

9/4/2013

William Ross
Winter
Dellenbach

Former CM
7/3/2013

??
2
??

10/21/2013

11
??

8/21/2013

7/12/2013

1
??

9/23/2013

AB1234

19

5/14/2013

Minutes

??

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