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Requesting 626.9 exemption in San Francisco

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bigtoe416

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I'm going the very ambiguous route. My letter reads:

Superintendent Garcia,

pursuant to California Penal Code 626.9, I hereby request your written permission which is granted to you by subsection b of the aforementioned code.

Sincerely,
<name>
<address>

Wish me luck!
 

bigtoe416

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Still haven't received a response, so I called them today. The superintendent's office forwarded me to the legal department, who said they hadn't seen anything like that come in. She asked if I could send it in to her and she would make sure it would go through the proper channels.

And yes, she asked what 626.9 was and I explained it had to do with bringing a concealable firearm within 1000' of a school. She didn't laugh or scoff, maybe that's progress.
 

Gundude

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bigtoe416 wrote:
I'm going the very ambiguous route. My letter reads:

Superintendent Garcia,

pursuant to California Penal Code 626.9, I hereby request your written permission which is granted to you by subsection b of the aforementioned code.

Sincerely,
<name>
<address>

Wish me luck!
Maybe he/she is an NRA member.
 

bigtoe416

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Still haven't received a response. I called again today and they still have no idea what I'm talking about. Apparently the postal system in San Francisco is awful or the central office regularly loses mail or they are playing dumb with me.

I'm going to hand deliver a hand written request today.

ETA:

Also filing this PRAR:

Pursuant to California's Public Records Act Request, I hereby request to inspect all emails, memos, letters, records, and files in electronic form or otherwise with the phrases "open carry", "626.9", "<my name>", "GFSZ", "Gun Free School Zone".

If access to the requested records is not granted immediately, please contact me via email when I can come inspect the records. I can be reached at <email>.
 

bigtoe416

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So I received a letter regarding my PRAR, hopefully pullnshoot25 or bad_ace or somebody with experience here can assist me with my next steps:

On January 26, 2010 I received your letter to Superintendent Garcia requesting records pursuant to the California Public Records Act. Your request is very broad and general. You request to "inspect all emails, memos, letters, records, files in electronic form or otherwise with the phrases 'open carry', '626.9', '<my name>', 'GFSZ', or 'Gun Free School Zone.'"

If you could give me some idea of your purpose or what you are hoping to find, then I could perhaps narrow my search. Please call me at your earliest convenience.

----

I'd rather not reveal what I'm trying to find or my purpose, I don't think I have to. Was my request too broad? I was thinking of rephrasing it as "all emails, internal or cross-agency memos, internal or cross-agency letters with the phrases 'open carry', '626.9', '<my name>', 'GFSZ', or 'Gun Free School Zone.' I also request any records or files pertaining to 'open carry', '626.9', or 'gun free school zones.'" Thoughts?
 

oc4ever

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I don't think it is too broad if you put a time restriction on it; like last year, six months, 3 months, etc.
 

sudden valley gunner

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Statkowski wrote:
What's wrong with this picture? You're telling us that the School District Superintendent's Officeand its legal department were confused by the term, "California Penal Code 626.9?"
Don't be to surprised, when I called a few lawyers about my detainment some didn't know what was legal or not on firearm laws. We need to start abolishing laws there are so many that lawyers have to "specialize". Just ridiculous.
 

Statkowski

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In theory, California law is, or should be, somewhat similar in make-up and follow-through to the laws of other states (we know it isn't, but let's assume it is). The school district's response stated, in part: "If you could give me some idea of your purpose or what you are hoping to find, then I could perhaps narrow my search."

Doesn't California's Public Records Act prohibit them from asking such a question?

And, for the school district, there's this:

Dear Superintendent Garcia,

California Penal Code, Section 626.9, otherwise known as the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995, generally prohibits a person from possessing a firearm within one thousand feet of the grounds of a public or private school. It does not matter if one is on foot or is driving from one place to another. Passing through a school zone as defined by the law while possessing a firearm is prohibited.

Subsection (b) of the Act does permit a person to carry a firearm outside of one's home or business with the written permission of the school district superintendent, his or her designee, or equivalent school authority.

I would like to be able to protect myself and my family while outside of my home, off school grounds, something that state law currently restricts without your written permission.

I therefor respectfully request your written permission, per California Penal Code, Section 626.9(b), to lawfully possess a firearm while within the geographic confines of your school district.

A copy of Section 626.9 is attached for your perusal and edification.

Sincerely,
 

MudCamper

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bigtoe416 wrote:
So I received a letter regarding my PRAR, hopefully pullnshoot25 or bad_ace or somebody with experience here can assist me with my next steps:

On January 26, 2010 I received your letter to Superintendent Garcia requesting records pursuant to the California Public Records Act. Your request is very broad and general. You request to "inspect all emails, memos, letters, records, files in electronic form or otherwise with the phrases 'open carry', '626.9', '<my name>', 'GFSZ', or 'Gun Free School Zone.'"

If you could give me some idea of your purpose or what you are hoping to find, then I could perhaps narrow my search. Please call me at your earliest convenience.

----

I'd rather not reveal what I'm trying to find or my purpose, I don't think I have to. Was my request too broad? I was thinking of rephrasing it as "all emails, internal or cross-agency memos, internal or cross-agency letters with the phrases 'open carry', '626.9', '<my name>', 'GFSZ', or 'Gun Free School Zone.' I also request any records or files pertaining to 'open carry', '626.9', or 'gun free school zones.'" Thoughts?
It's none of their damn business what your purpose is. They are attempting to stall you or get you to give up. They may even have some policy that allows them to destroy emails or other data after a certain time and are waiting for that.
 

ConditionThree

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MudCamper wrote:
bigtoe416 wrote:
So I received a letter regarding my PRAR, hopefully pullnshoot25 or bad_ace or somebody with experience here can assist me with my next steps:

On January 26, 2010 I received your letter to Superintendent Garcia requesting records pursuant to the California Public Records Act. Your request is very broad and general. You request to "inspect all emails, memos, letters, records, files in electronic form or otherwise with the phrases 'open carry', '626.9', '<my name>', 'GFSZ', or 'Gun Free School Zone.'"

If you could give me some idea of your purpose or what you are hoping to find, then I could perhaps narrow my search. Please call me at your earliest convenience.

----

I'd rather not reveal what I'm trying to find or my purpose, I don't think I have to. Was my request too broad? I was thinking of rephrasing it as "all emails, internal or cross-agency memos, internal or cross-agency letters with the phrases 'open carry', '626.9', '<my name>', 'GFSZ', or 'Gun Free School Zone.' I also request any records or files pertaining to 'open carry', '626.9', or 'gun free school zones.'" Thoughts?
It's none of their damn business what your purpose is. They are attempting to stall you or get you to give up. They may even have some policy that allows them to destroy emails or other data after a certain time and are waiting for that.

Agreed. They only thing they really need to worry about is getting you a response in 10 days- not what the purpose of your PRAR is.
 

CA_Libertarian

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I think this may be an attempt to get you to modify your request, which would reset the 10-day timetable to respond, as it could be reasonably argued that you cancelled your old request and submitted a new one.

It may also be an attempt to get you to narrow your request to exclude something they don't want to give you. (E.g. you narrow your search to only records "pertaining to my request for permission" and now they don't have to give you info about the people they've granted permission to in the past year.)

IMO, don't fall for it. I'd politely reply that you're not sure exactly what you're looking for, and then ask when you can inspect the records.

Don't narrow the search at all. More info is better than less. It's the agency's responsibility to be able to facilitate these types of requests; not your fault they're inept.
 

bigtoe416

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Spoke to the Executive Directory of the Office of Equity Assurance a little bit ago. She was telling me that my public records request was extremely broad and that it could take her all year to get the requested items. She repeatedly asked me what I was looking for and I said I didn't know what I was looking for, hence the broad request. She also didn't understand why I would file a PRAR on information regarding GFSZ versus researching it on Google. I told twice that I was very well educated on the topics I was searching for, I wanted to find out what the school district knew, believed, or thought regarding these topics.

She had said in the past that public records requests came in the form of, "Can I have the pg&e bill for july 2006?" I asked her how one would even find out that the district pays pg&e for their electricity, wouldn't somebody have to file a PRAR for "electricity bill" or something first? She said that it was common knowledge that the school district does business with pg&e.

So then I asked, "What if I wanted to find out all the book purchases that the district does on an annual basis?" Wouldn't I first have to do a PRAR for "books" or "book purchases" or something? She said that would be an option but even that would take six months to complete.

I also asked how an investigative reporter would go about researching a topic without having any specific knowledge if any evidence exists, wouldn't that reporter have to do a broad search for relevant phrases or terms? I don't recall exactly what she said here, but she didn't have a straightforward answer.

She basically said her only way of fulfilling this request would be to send out an email to the departments and ask people if they had any information on any of the topics listed. If they said they didn't then she'd have to take their word for it. After much back and forth (obviously), I said if that's what she would normally do in this situation, then I guess that's what she should do.

Right before the call ended she mentioned how each copy of any document would cost ten cents and I reminded her that's fine since I only requested to inspect the records, if I want copies of anything I inspect then I will let her know at that time. I view this as a last ditch attempt of trying to disuade me from allowing the PRAR to go through. I had underlined the word "inspect" in the request and everything. Maybe she just thinks I'm dumb, who knows.
 

coolusername2007

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Imagine that...a government run institution that isn't helpful in the least...other than taking your tax dollars. It sounds like you'll either get a mountain of documents that will take you a year to sort through, or you'll get nothing at all.
 

MudCamper

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bigtoe416 wrote:
She basically said her only way of fulfilling this request would be to send out an email to the departments and ask people if they had any information on any of the topics listed. If they said they didn't then she'd have to take their word for it. After much back and forth (obviously), I said if that's what she would normally do in this situation, then I guess that's what she should do.
This will not work. You will not get what you are looking for. They will exclude the exact kind of thing that is most damaging to them, which will be emails along the lines of, "there no way in hell we'd even ever consider giving this guy permission" and the like. I would ask that their IT person do a search of ALL email and databases for the keywords you suggested and to allow you to view all the hits.

Then again, the recipient of your original 626.9 request could have just thrown it in the trash and there will be no records.
 

bigtoe416

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MudCamper wrote:
This will not work. You will not get what you are looking for. They will exclude the exact kind of thing that is most damaging to them, which will be emails along the lines of, "there no way in hell we'd even ever consider giving this guy permission" and the like. I would ask that their IT person do a search of ALL email and databases for the keywords you suggested and to allow you to view all the hits.

Then again, the recipient of your original 626.9 request could have just thrown it in the trash and there will be no records.
Yeah, I suspect everything you said here is true. I'll probably get nothing, the person conducting the search probably has no idea about the search capabilities of their email system, and they probably immediately discarded my previous two requests after seeing that it wasn't sent through registered mail.

Of course, two can play that game. If I get nothing I'll file another PRAR for their email system, version, their data retention policy, and the name of their email administrator. Then with that information I'll file another PRAR asking for them to specifically search their email system. Whatever...all I have to do is send a letter, they (theoretically) have to give me what I ask for. I can send letters all day long.
 
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