San Luis Obispo County officials handed over a single text message as part of discovery in a lawsuit that’s challenging the county’s 2021 redistricting map—and the group suing, Citizens for Good Government, isn’t buying it.
For the past six months, Citizens for Good Government and county lawyers have butted heads over records in the case, according to recent court filings, and the final sticking point is communications over county supervisors’ personal cell phones and email accounts.
On Aug. 23, Citizens for Good Government filed a formal motion to compel the county to produce any withheld phone or email communications, or at minimum provide “competent evidence” of a “reasonable and diligent search.”
“The county has produced a single, non-substantive text message and some emails from supervisors’ personal accounts in response to petitioner’s request,” the motion read. “It did not seem credible that only one text message was sent or received during the entire yearlong redistricting process.”
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Nov. 3. According to Citizens for Good Government, the county has not provided convincing evidence that it completed an exhaustive search of supervisors’ text or emails. The county declined to provide signed affidavits from the supervisors about their searches or to confirm that they did not communicate about redistricting on private devices or accounts.
Linda Seifert, a SLO resident and board member of Citizens for Good Government, told New Times that getting a complete public record of the redistricting process is important to litigating the case.
“We have a responsibility to prove that the county acted improperly when we filed our lawsuit. That’s our obligation,” Seifert said. “I think we’re entitled to the documents that create an administrative record to show that. When we’re getting virtually no responses to an inquiry about emails and/or texts between supervisors or to supervisors, it raises some question.”
SLO County disagreed that it’s withholding anything. Deputy County Counsel Jon Ansolabehere told New Times via email that the county has done its part during the discovery process. When asked whether supervisors are trained in how to search their phones and emails for records, he said “our office regularly provides guidance to the supervisors on the use of personal phones and email accounts for public business.”
“The county complied with the law regarding the production of documents,” he added. “It should be noted that through the civil discovery and Public Records Act processes, the county disclosed thousands of pages of documents related to the redistricting of the supervisorial boundaries.” Δ
This article appears in Sep 1-11, 2022.