KTVU reported today that 2/3 of the people who file California Public Records Act requests in Oakland do not receive responses to their requests within the 10 days specified by the law, and that 59% of those surveyed found it “very difficult” to get the information they requested. The San Diego Unified School District was also in the news this week for its indifference to CPRA time limits, with the Voice of San Diego reporting that a paralegal who oversees requests for the district said he does not get records back related to requests within 10 days 95% of the time.
The pragmatic reality behind all of this is that the threat of litigation is the only real mechanism the public has to enforce these limits, but the notion of running to court merely because an agency has blown a tight deadline also poses certain challenges.