City Released a Lovato Email Under One Request, Then Denied Having Records Eight Days Later

2 — Expanded Header

On 12/29/2025 an officer of the Office of the City Clerk printed a 09/02/2025 Paul Lovato Case 23-009185 email from her own Outlook mailbox M036 E.3, and that same afternoon released it under one CPRA request R.25-4711 — the City's own filename identifying it as a record of a different, earlier request E.3 R.25-3549. Eight days later the same officer closed a separate request R.26-39 with "the City does not have any records that are responsive to your request," twenty-two minutes after it was filed. The earlier request R.25-3549 sought all Lovato Code Enforcement records for 01/01/2020-09/19/2025, and another City Clerk officer had already closed it "All responsive records have been provided" on 11/07/2025 — yet the email surfaced only weeks later under the second request. The City Clerk's office closed one request as complete, later produced an additional record that fell within the first request's scope, then closed a third request as having no responsive records.

When a city closes a public-records request as complete, it places a statement on the record that it searched and gave what the request required. The City's clerk office told the owner's representative it had already given "all responsive records" for the inspector's case emails. Weeks later, the same office handed over one more email — an email from the inspector about this very property — that a clerk had just printed from her own work inbox; the City's own filename identified it as a record of the earlier request that was supposed to have caught it. Then, eight days after producing that email, the same clerk answered a follow-up request by saying the City had no records at all, closing it just twenty-two minutes after it arrived. The City Clerk's office released an inspector's case email under one request and, eight days later, closed another request as having no such records — a contradiction on its own paperwork. The universal anchor is C47.

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3 — Record Chain

4 — Requested City Action

1. Produce a written determination, under GC § 7922.540, identifying the responsible official and the legal basis for the 01/06/2026 no-records closure of R.26-39 — a closure issued twenty-two minutes after filing and eight days after the same officer released the email now proven to be within scope.
2. Produce a written determination explaining why the 09/02/2025 Lovato email — falling within the express date, author, and subject scope of R.25-3549 — was not included in the 11/07/2025 "All responsive records have been provided" closure of that request R.25-3549.
3. Produce any record, dated before 11/07/2025, showing the 09/02/2025 Lovato email was disclosed in the R.25-3549 production — the only fact that would disprove the gap E.3 R.25-4711. Personnel: Jena Swafford · Anna Sorensen · Paul Lovato · Bo Cosley ---

5 — Full Circle

The City Clerk's office did three incompatible things on its own record in sixty days: closed the records request "all responsive records have been provided" R.25-3549 on 11/07/2025; produced, under a second request R.25-4711, a Lovato Case 23-009185 email that the prior closure should have caught, printed from one officer's Outlook on 12/29/2025 E.3; and then, through that same officer, closed a request as having no responsive record on 01/06/2026 R.26-39 — eight days after producing the contradicting record, in a twenty-two-minute turnaround. A CPRA denial is the account of a search; this one collides with the City's own production two weeks earlier.

Risk: HIGH. Punch: 9/10. The three-step collision — complete closure, then production, then no-records denial — is documented in the City's own NextRequest portal records and its own produced filename. The sequence requires no additional documentary evidence beyond the City's own CPRA portal records and produced filename; the only contested step — whether the 09/02/2025 email fell within R.25-3549's scope — is answered by the City's own filename, which identifies it as a record of that earlier request. Enforcement route: GC § 7923.000.

Anticipated City defense: the second request R.25-4711 had a narrower scope than R.25-3549, so the email was produced when it became responsive to the narrower request; alternatively, the email was discovered after 11/07/2025 through a search prompted by the second request — an ordinary supplemental production, not a contradiction.

Answer: The scoping argument is met by the City's own filename — Re_ 4880 T Street Jackie's House - 25-3549.pdf identifies the document as a record of the earlier request E.3. The supplemental-production argument is met by the denial eight days later R.26-39: if the 12/29/2025 release reflected an improved search, that improved search should have informed the 01/06/2026 determination instead of being immediately contradicted by it. Either the 12/29/2025 production reflects an actual record state that governs subsequent closures, or it does not, and the twenty-two-minute 01/06/2026 denial shows it did not. The email is a public record wherever it was stored CASC.SanJose.2Cal5th608. An inadequate or contradictory CPRA response is enforceable GC § 7923.000.

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Applicable Law

• GC § 7922.530 — CPRA production obligation — the agency must produce all disclosable records.
• GC § 7922.535 — CPRA determination timing — written determination required within ten days of receipt.
• GC § 7922.540 — CPRA denial/withholding identification duty — when records are denied, the agency must identify the responsible official and the legal basis.
• GC § 7923.000 — CPRA writ enforcement — judicial remedy for agency non-compliance.
• CASC.SanJose.2Cal5th608 — City of San Jose v. Superior Court (2017) 2 Cal.5th 608 — a city employee's writing about the public's business is a public record regardless of the private or government account in which it is stored.