Audit shows cops improving

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer
Most local agencies doing better job handling public records requests, according to report | Tuesday, November 27, 2007 11:10 PM PST ∞

NORTH COUNTY -- In a recent follow-up to a statewide exercise conducted about one year ago, a Sacramento advocacy group found local police agencies have improved in responding to requests from the public to view records they are entitled to inspect under California law, a report being released today says.

But not every agency viewed the exercise as a constructive tool for helping law enforcement better serve the public. The San Diego County Sheriff's Department reacted angrily, as it did when the original exercise was made public in January, suggesting the effort was misguided.

In the original exercise, in which participants anonymously asked departments for permission to view recent crime records and submitted written requests to obtain information about agency policies, most agencies locally and around the state were given failing grades.

In the follow-up survey conducted between Oct. 16 and Nov. 4, Oceanside police scored 72.5 for a grade of C minus, Escondido received an 88.5 for a B plus, and Carlsbad was awarded an A for coming in with a 95.

Still, the latest report card contained some low marks.

The Vista and San Marcos substations of the Sheriff's Department both received scores of 62.5 and grades of D minus.

And there were some troubling repeat problems that surfaced again, even after being highlighted in the original exercise. Although the law requires agencies to provide information with no strings attached, the agencies serving Oceanside, San Marcos and Vista all asked for the requester's name and purpose, as a prerequisite for seeing any records, the report states. And an Escondido Police Department employee demanded to know what the information would be used for.

Only Carlsbad police provided information without turning around and asking questions of the requester, the report states.

"We are still seeing too many agencies demanding who inquirers are and what their purpose is," said Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, the Sacramento open government advocacy group that coordinated the exercise, in a telephone interview. "And to make matters worse, in many cases they did not provide any information in return."

The Sheriff's Department maintained that the requests were made in such a way as to make it difficult for agencies to respond.

"In an undercover capacity, members of this organization contacted four Sheriff's stations and made ambiguous requests for 'any and all information' that could be provided to the public on recent burglaries," the agency stated, in a prepared three-page statement. "These requests did not comply with the requirement of the Public Records Act that a request 'reasonably describe an identifiable record or records.' "

Francke countered that the participants, who were primarily news reporters and college journalism students and in some cases League of Women Voters volunteers, were instructed to ask for information about a specific recent burglary that occurred in each covered community. The public records audit targeted 116 agencies statewide. The North County Times participated in both rounds of the exercise.

The Sheriff's Department also stressed that it is difficult for substations to respond to requests because many records are kept at its central station in San Diego. But Francke said the public still should be able to make requests at satellite locations and expect a response within 10 days, as prescribed by law.

"We would be glad to respond to a point-by-point statement of rebuttal," Francke said of the Sheriff's Department response. "This is not it. This appears to be set up to try to discredit the audit and CalAware, without having the courage ... to say exactly where we went wrong."

In the exercise, participants verbally requested burglary information and mailed in a written request seeking information about fees for making copies of public records.

The report states that Oceanside charges 10 cents per page, and everyone else locally charges 15 cents. When it comes to copying entire crime reports, Oceanside charges $5.50, Escondido charges $15 and the Sheriff's Department charges $20.

Carlsbad's reports are free to victims, the report states.

"We're pleased because we do strive for good customer service, and these results reflect that," said Lynn Diamond, a spokeswoman for Carlsbad police.

And Lt. Bob Benton, a spokesman for the Escondido Police Department, said, "We're happy to hear that we attained a much higher score than we did last time. The Public Records Act is important."

Oceanside police Chief Frank McCoy said his city was gratified for its better showing, after failing when the original report was released in January.

"Our department has taken the Public Records Act request seriously, to the standpoint that we sent some personnel to training classes to ensure that we are in compliance with state law," McCoy said. "However, there is still work to be done from the city's perspective."

At the same time, McCoy said he was under the impression that Oceanside had done quite a bit better. He provided a copy that he had obtained of a spreadsheet listing the agencies' scores that said the city had been given an 80 for responding to specific records requests and a 95 for customer service. The response to information requests and customer service each counted for half of an agency's grade.

What McCoy saw stood in contrast to the scores of 60 and 85, respectively, in the report. Francke, the advocacy group's lawyer, said late Tuesday that the chief appeared to have received a preliminary summary that had since been updated once more details of a requester's visit were made available.

-- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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