"At today's Nevada County Board of Supervisors meeting, Clerk-Recorder Greg Diaz is expected to present an ordinance laying out a new fee structure for county recorded maps. The maps were previously free online, and hard copies from the office cost 15 cents apiece.
"Diaz pulled them off the county website in December to comply with a pair of California privacy laws, government codes 6254.21 and 6254.24. County Counsel Michael Jamison backed Diaz in his interpretation of the law, which is standard in most California counties. The laws prohibit counties from posting on the Internet any materials containing the names and addresses of elected officials and law enforcement officers for their protection.
"Development officials, who use the recorded maps to determine parcel lines, were joined by members of the county's Board of Supervisors in disagreeing with Diaz' interpretation of the law and whether Internet users could glean an address from the maps. Developers and surveyors, along with some of the supervisors, panned Diaz' plan when it was first introduced at the board's Jan. 25 meeting. Supervisors Nate Beason, Hank Weston, Ted Owens and Chair Ed Scofield questioned Diaz' interpretation.
“'I wish that Greg would be a bit more cooperative with us,' Scofield said Monday. 'I'm not sure our board is entirely convinced this is the right way to go.'
The rest of the article is here.
The problem with the position of Diaz and county counsel is that...well...they are wrong about the law.
As legal authority for such action, the County relies upon Cal. Govt. Code § 6254.21 subsection (a), which provides as follows:
“No state or local agency shall post the home address or telephone number of any elected or appointed official in the Internet without first obtaining the written permission of that individual.
Such subsection was originally enacted as part of the California Public Records Act under S.B. 1386 in September 1998. The complete section of the law, Cal. Govt. Code § 6254.21, has been amended four times since 1998.
Such amendments are as follows:
A.B. 2238 in September 2002
A.B. 1595 in September 2005
A.B. 32 in October 2009
A.B. 1813 in August of 2010
None of these amendments made any changes to Cal. Govt. Code § 6254.21 subsection (a) which is the subsection upon which the County is basing its decision. In other words, the specific law upon which the County relies as been unchanged for almost 13 years...which begs the question - why this came up now?! Money.
The only legal opinion interpreting Cal. Govt. Code § 6254.21 subsection (a) is an opinion from the Attorney General of California, Jerry Brown dated May 20, 2008, which was requested by El Dorado County.
In such opinion, the Attorney General Jerry Brown concluded that “the 1998 enactment as having been intended to prevent public agencies from posting on their public websites any list or directory of public officials’ home addresses and telephone numbers, without first obtaining each official’s written permission to be included in the listing.” [Emphasis supplied by the Attorney General].
The Attorney General found that his primary purpose in construing the statute was to ascertain and give effect to the Legislature’s intent. The Attorney General stated that in most cases the plain language of the statute is the best gauge of such intent.
For such reason, the Attorney General concluded that “giving unmitigated effect to the language of section 6254.21(a) would lead to results that are unreasonable and inconsistent with the Legislature’s true intent.”
The specific incident that sparked the enactment of Cal. Govt. Code § 6542.21(a) was the City of Sacramento posting the home address and telephone numbers of all public officials (including law enforcement officials) on its website. The controversial website was taken down later.
In this instance, Nevada County is not attempting to restrict access to a list or directory. The County is unreasonably seeking to remove digitized images of recorded maps by using a 13-year old law and stretching its true meaning beyond its plain language. The County asserts that the public could “glean” the alleged information from the maps; however, gleaning information versus posting “on their public websites any list or directory of public officials’ home addresses and telephone numbers” are very different things and in no way comparable. The County is attempting to stretch the old statute and give it an “unmitigated effect” in direct contravention to the opinion of the Attorney General and in direct contravention to Legislature’s intent.
Why?
This issue is about the Recorder's office making money on the back of business. It really is that simple.
Some would argue that it is politics, but Terry Lamphier agrees with the rest of the conservative members of the Board of Supervisors. Terry is not “far right.” Terry reasoned that we need to reduce our carbon footprint and taking the maps off-line under a stretched interpretation of a law is not reasonable. Making people drive all over putting more CO2 in the atmosphere to purchase CD’s when the information was free online is not good policy for our environment and is not helping to reduce our carbon footprint.
Terry's reasoning is actually "far left," yet he came to the same conclusion. It is not politics...it is plain old common sense - from the right side and the left side.
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