Should government records take years to be released? Caltrans sends monthly extension emails
Public records requests from KCRA 3 show a pattern of lengthy “extensions”
Special Projects Producer
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
How long do you think it takes for reporters to get public records? A day? Ten days? Thirty?
Under California law, agencies are supposed to respond to a request for records within 10 days – that’s the California Public Records Act or CPRA.
Here are a couple of examples from my own list here, both of them from the agency Caltrans, the department in charge of our roads and transportation infrastructure.
In one case, we asked for records about a plan they had for restoration of rest areas. That was November 2024. Nearly two years later, we’re getting monthly emails saying they need extensions.
“Caltrans has identified responsive records for this request… you will receive a further, more complete response no later than,” the messages say. The deadline has changed every month. A new email arrived starting in December 2024. We got the last on in July.
We still don’t have the records.
The same happened on another request, this one for a story about a consumer we thought received damage to their car in a construction zone. We got the same emails from Caltrans, the same “you will receive a further more complete response” in a month. No records for that, either.
So, why should you care?
Governor Gavin Newsom has said that transparency should be a “legal and moral requirement.” Yet former members of the governor’s staff have been accused in legal documents of obfuscating and delaying CPRA requests, even for years.
The question becomes, if the state is delaying records on things like rest area restoration or car damage in construction zones, what other things is it delaying?
What other records, for bigger things, do they not want the public to see or talk about?
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