Santa Clara County pays $500,000 in legal fees to settle FAC suit

FAC’s victory in a lawsuit against Santa Clara County over access to digital mapping data has resulted in the county’s release of the data and payment of $500,000 to FAC’s lawyers, a record-high fee recovery in a California public records case. -DB

San Jose Mercury News
October 7, 2009
By John Woolfolk

Santa Clara County’s move to charge astronomical fees for public access to its electronic maps has backfired in a $500,000 legal settlement. Government watchdogs say it is the largest payment of its kind in a California records disclosure dispute.

The settlement paid this week to cover the San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition’s legal bills ends a three-year court odyssey. In June 2006, the nonprofit watchdog group sued the county for refusing to provide its geographic information systems “basemap” following a California Public Records Act request.

The maps include aerial photographs, jurisdictional boundaries, assessor parcel information, streets and buildings. The information is primarily used by other government agencies, although utility and real estate companies also have an interest in the data.

But Peter Scheer, executive director of the coalition, said the maps have significant journalistic value as well. Reporters and bloggers could analyze them to find geographic disparities in property assessments, emergency responses and even pothole repairs.

The First Amendment Coalition, of which the Mercury News is a member, noted in court papers that 14 California counties provide such maps to the public for free and 23 others charge only minimal costs to duplicate the records on discs. Santa Clara County, however, sought to charge considerable fees to cover the production of the records; the coalition argued the bill could total $250,000 for countywide data.

Scheer said the $500,000 judgment should serve as a warning to all government officials that they may pay a steep price for stiffing the public on records requests.

“It sends a very, very clear message that if they ignore their obligations under our open government laws, they better treat that as a real liability,” Scheer said.

Acting Santa Clara County Counsel Miguel Márquez said the case involved complex issues on which the law was not clear.

“Hindsight is always 20-20,” said Márquez, who joined the county’s legal team in July 2008. “It was one of those cases that needed to be tried and for which we needed guidance from the court.”

The county claimed its GIS maps were not subject to disclosure under the public records act because they contained sensitive information such as the location of water supply pipelines that were not subject to release under federal homeland security law.

The county further argued its maps were copyright protected and that it was entitled to recover the expense of compiling the data in addition to the copying costs.

The 6th District U.S. Court of Appeal rejected the county’s arguments in a February ruling.

“The county really fought us every step of the way on this one,” said Rachel Matteo-Boehm, a partner in the San Francisco law firm Holme, Roberts & Owen who handled the case for the First Amendment Coalition. She added the case took “hundreds and hundreds of hours” to litigate.

The coalition will not receive any of the settlement money, only the law firm, Scheer said.

“I wish it weren’t coming out of the government’s hide during a recession,” Scheer said. “But I’m not going to be apologetic about it because this is the way we send a very clear message.”

Márquez said that cost of the legal settlement is not expected to hurt programs in a county confronting massive budget shortfalls. “I don’t think $500,000 in and of itself is going to impact programs.”

Copyright 2009 San Jose Mercury News