City communications re. CURE nomination and selection

To the Office of the City Manager in Benicia, California:

Pursuant to the California Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:

Any emails, written communications, texts, chats, or instant messages, on any government accounts/devices AND personal accounts or devices made by the Benicia City Council Members Steve Young, Tom Campbell, Trevor Macenski, Christina Strawbridge, and Lionel Largaespada; City Manager Erik Upson; and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Manager Dr. Maliika Chambers regarding the outreach, nomination, and selection process for the Committee United for Racial Justice (CURE), and dated from November 1, 2020 to December 10, 2021.

In the responsive documents, please include the following:
1. the selection criteria for candidates;
2. any communications regarding how selection criteria were developed;
3. the framework and judging criteria for candidate advancement;
5. interview questions; and
6. any interview notes recordings non-exempt from disclosure.

Please include all group messages and all messages in threads, in any form and on any app (including, but not limited to, SMS, MMS, text, iMessage, Teams, Discord, WeChat, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram, Hangouts, Meet, Signal, Slack, Skype, Viber, Snapchat, Line), on any government accounts/devices or on personal accounts or devices. Please also include any deleted message text, images, attachments, dates, and times in trash or deleted folders or similar (see Good Government Guide—if the records have not been permanently deleted as of the time you receive this request, you must retrieve them and provide them).

While the CPRA does include an exemption for “[p]ersonnel, medical, or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy (Gov’t Code § 6254[c]), courts have ruled that this exemption may only be invoked to protect the intimate details or personal and family life, not official business judgments and relationships (Bakersfield City School Dist. v. Sup. Ct., 118 Cal. App. 4th 1041, 1045 [2004]; Braun v. City of Taft, 154 Cal. App. 3d 332, 343-44 [1984]). Therefore, if nondisclosure is predicated upon issues of public interest or the privilege of deliberative process, please provide specific reasoning demonstrating “that on the facts of the particular case the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record (Gov’t Code § 6255[a]) .

In the event that some portions of the requested records are properly exempt from disclosure, please disclose any reasonably segregable non-exempt portions of the requested records. If it is the City's position that a document contains non-exempt segments, but that those non-exempt segments are so dispersed throughout the document as to make segregation impossible, please state what portion of the document is non-exempt, and how the material is dispersed throughout the document. If a request is denied in whole, state specifically that it is not reasonable to segregate portions of the record for release.

Please provide only those copies of records available without any fees. If you determine certain records would require fees, please instead provide the required notice of which of those records are available and non-exempt for inspection in-person if I so choose. In the event that there are fees, please inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request be fulfilled electronically, by email attachment if available or thumb drive if not.

I am requesting these documents on behalf of myself and no specific group, as this is a matter of public interest. The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 calendar days, as the statute requires.

Nathalie Christian