SWRCC (Tsai) 2022-06-15 - Travertine PRAPh: (626) 381-9248
Fx: (626) 389-5414
Em: info@mitchtsailaw.com
Mitchell M. Tsai
Attorney At Law
139 South Hudson Avenue
Suite 200
Pasadena, California 91101
VIA E-MAIL
June 15, 2022
Monika Radeva, City Clerk
City of La Quinta
78-495 Calle Tampico
La Quinta, CA 92253
Em: mradeva@laquintaca.gov
Cheri Flores, Project Manager
City of La Quinta
78-495 Calle Tampico
La Quinta, CA 92253
Em: clflores@laquintaca.gov
RE: Public Records Act and Mailing List Request Regarding the
Travertine Specific Plan Project
Dear Monika Radeva and Cheri Flores,
On behalf of Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters (“SWRCC” or “Southwest
Carpenters”) and its members, this Office requests that the City of La Quinta (“City”
or “Lead Agency”) provide any and all information referring or related to the
Travertine Specific Plan Project (“Project”) pursuant to the California Public Records
Act (“PRA”), Cal. Government (“Gov’t”) Code §§ 6250–6270 (collectively “PRA
Request”).
Moreover, SWRCC requests that City provide notice for any and all notices referring
or related to the Project issued under the California Environmental Quality Act
(“CEQA”), Cal Public Resources Code (“PRC”) § 21000 et seq, and the California
Planning and Zoning Law (“Planning and Zoning Law”), Cal. Gov’t Code §§
65000–65010. California Public Resources Code Sections 21092.2, and 21167(f) and
Government Code Section 65092 require agencies to mail such notices to any person
who has filed a written request for them with the clerk of the agency’s governing body.
The Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters is a labor union representing more
than 50,000 union carpenters in six states, including California, and has a strong
City of La Quinta – Travertine Specific Plan Project
June 15, 2022
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interest in well-ordered land use planning and addressing the environmental impacts of
development projects, such as the Project.
I. PUBLIC RECORDS ACT REQUEST.
Southwest Carpenters is requesting any and all information referring or related to the
Project.
The Public Records Act defines the term “public record” broadly as “any writing
containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business . . . regardless
of physical form and characteristics.” Gov’t Code § 6252(d). “Records” includes all
communications relating to public business regardless of physical form or
characteristics, including but not limited to any writing, picture, sound, or symbol,
whether paper, magnetic, electronic, text, other media, or written verification of any
oral communication. Included in this request are any references in any appointment
calendars and applications, phone records, or text records. These “records” are to
include, but are not limited to correspondences, e-mails, reports, letters,
memorandums, and communications by any employee or elected official of City
concerning the Project.
Please include in your response to this request the following examples of “records,” as
well as any similar physical or electronic forms of communication: any form of writing
such as correspondence, electronic mail records (“email”), legal and factual
memoranda, facsimiles, photographs, maps, videotapes, film, data, reports, notes,
audiotapes, or drawings. Cal. Government Code § 6252(g) (defining a writing to
including “any record thereby created, regardless of the manner in which the record
has been stored”). Responsive correspondence should include, inter alia, emails, text
messages, or any other form of communication regardless of whether they were sent
or received on public or privately-owned electronic devices “relating to the conduct of
the public’s business.” Cal. Government Code § 6252(e); Citizens for Ceres v. Super. Ct.
(“Ceres”) (2013) 217 Cal. App. 4th 889, 909; Citizens for Open Gov’t v. City of Lodi
(“Lodi”) (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 296, 307, 311; City of San Jose v. Superior Court (2017) 2
Cal. 5th 608, 625 (finding that a public employee or officer’s “writings about public
business are not excluded” from the California Public Records Act “simply because
they have been sent, received, or stored in a personal account.”) .
This Office requests any and all information referring or related to the Project,
including but not limited to:
City of La Quinta – Travertine Specific Plan Project
June 15, 2022
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(1) All Project application materials;
(2) All staff reports and related documents prepared by the City with
respect to its compliance with the substantive and procedural
requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, Public
Resources Code § 21000 et seq., and the CEQA Guidelines, title 14,
California Code of Regulations, § 15000 et seq. (collectively
“CEQA”) and with respect to the action on the Project;
(3) All staff reports and related documents prepared by the City and
written testimony or documents submitted by any person relevant
to any findings or statement of overriding considerations adopted
by the agency pursuant to CEQA;
(4) Any transcript or minutes of the proceedings at which the
decisionmaking body of the City heard testimony on, or considered
any environmental document on, the Project, and any transcript or
minutes of proceedings before any advisory body to the public
agency that were presented to the decisionmaking body prior to
action on the environmental documents or on the Project;
(5) All notices issued by the City to comply with CEQA or with any
other law governing the processing and approval of the Project;
(6) All written comments received in response to, or in connection
with, environmental documents prepared for the Project, including
responses to the notice of preparation;
(7) All written evidence or correspondence submitted to, or
transferred from, the City with respect to compliance with CEQA
or with respect to the Project;
(8) Any proposed decisions or findings submitted to the
decisionmaking body of the City by its staff, or the Project
proponent, Project opponents, or other persons;
(9) The documentation of the final City decision and approvals,
including the final environmental impact report, mitigated negative
declaration, negative declaration, or notice of exemption, and all
documents, in addition to those referenced in paragraph (3), cited
City of La Quinta – Travertine Specific Plan Project
June 15, 2022
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or relied on in the findings or in a statement of overriding
considerations adopted pursuant to CEQA;
(10) Any other written materials relevant to the public agency's
compliance with CEQA or to its decision on the merits of the
Project, including the initial study, any drafts of any environmental
document, or portions thereof, that have been released for public
review, and copies of studies or other documents relied upon in any
environmental document prepared for the Project and either made
available to the public during the public review period or included
in the City 's files on the Project, and all internal agency
communications, including staff notes and memoranda related to
the Project or to compliance with CEQA; and
(11) The full written record before any inferior administrative
decisionmaking body whose decision was appealed to a superior
administrative decisionmaking body prior to the filing of any
litigation.
Please respond within 10 days from the date you receive this request as to whether
this request specifies identifiable records not exempt from disclosure under the PRA
or otherwise privileged or confidential, and are therefore subject to disclosure. This
Office understands that this time may be extended up to 14 days for unusual
circumstances as provided by Cal. Government Code § 6253(c), and that we will be
notified of any extension and the reasons justifying it.
We request that you provide all documents in electronic format and waive any and all
fees associated with this Request. SWRCC is a community-based organization. Please
notify and obtain express approval from this Office before incurring any duplication
costs.
If any of the above requested documents are available online, please provide us with
the URL web address at which the documents may be downloaded. If any of the
requested documents are retained by the City in electronic computer-readable format
such as PDF (portable document format), please provide us with pdf copies of the
documents via email, or inform us of the location at which we can copy these
documents electronically.
City of La Quinta – Travertine Specific Plan Project
June 15, 2022
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In preparing your response, please bear in mind that you have an obligation under
Government Code section 6253.1 to (1) identify all records and information
responsive to our request or the purpose of our request; (2) describe the information
technology and physical location in which the records exist; and (3) provide
suggestions for overcoming any practical basis for denying access to the records or
information sought.
In responding to this request, please bear in mind that any exemptions from disclosure
you may believe to be applicable are to be narrowly construed. Marken v. Santa Monica-
Malibu Unif. Sch. Dist. (2012) 202 Cal. App. 4th 1250,1262; and may be further
narrowed or eliminated by the adoption of Proposition 59, which amended article I,
section 3(b)(2) of the California Constitution to direct that any “statute ... or other
authority ... [that] limits the right of access” to “information concerning the conduct of
the people’s business” must be “narrowly construed.”
As for any records that you nonetheless decline to produce on the grounds of an
exemption, please bear in mind that the case law under the Public Records Act
imposes a duty on you to distinguish between the exempt and the non-exempt portion
of any such records, and to attempt in good faith to redact the exempt portion and to
disclose the balance of such documents.
Please bear in mind further that should you choose to withhold any document from
disclosure, you have a duty under Government Code section 6255, subd. (a) to “justify
withholding any record by demonstrating that the record in question is exempt under
express provisions” of the Public Records Act or that “the public interest served by
not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of
the record.”
Finally, please note that you must retain and not destroy any and all records,
notwithstanding any local record retention or document destruction policies. As the
Court noted in Golden Door Properties, LLC v. Superior Court of San Diego County (2020) 53
Cal.App.5th 733 that a public agency “must retain ‘[a]ll written evidence or
correspondence submitted to, or transferred from’ . . . with respect to” CEQA
compliance or “with respect to the project.”
II. NOTICE LIST REQUEST.
We also ask that you put this Office on its notice list for any and all notices issued
under the CEQA and the Planning and Zoning Law.
City of La Quinta – Travertine Specific Plan Project
June 15, 2022
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In particular, we request that City send by mail or electronic mail notice of any and all
actions or hearings related to activities undertaken, authorized, approved, permitted,
licensed, or certified by the City and any of its subdivision for the Project, or
supported, in whole or in part, through permits, contracts, grants, subsidies, loans, or
other forms of approvals, actions or assistance, including but not limited to the
following:
• Notices of any public hearing held in connection with the Project;
as well as
• Any and all notices prepared pursuant to CEQA, including but not
limited to:
• Notices of determination that an Environmental Impact Report
(“EIR”) or supplemental EIR is required for a project, prepared
pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 21080.4;
• Notices of availability of an EIR or a negative declaration for a
project prepared pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 21152
and Section 15087 of Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations;
• Notices of approval or determination to carry out a project,
prepared pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 21152 or any
other provision of law;
• Notice of approval or certification of any EIR or negative
declaration prepared pursuant to Public Resources Code Section
21152 or any other provision of law;
• Notice of exemption from CEQA prepared pursuant to Public
Resources Code section 21152 or any other provision of law; and
• Notice of any Final EIR prepared pursuant to CEQA.
This Office is requesting notices of any approvals or public hearings under CEQA and
the California Planning and Zoning Law. This request is filed pursuant to California
Public Resources Code Sections 21092.2, and 21167(f) and Government Code Section
65092 requiring agencies to mail such notices to any person who has filed a written
request for them with the clerk of the agency’s governing body.
City of La Quinta – Travertine Specific Plan Project
June 15, 2022
Page 7 of 7
Please send notice by regular and electronic mail to:
Mitchell M. Tsai, Attorney At Law
139 South Hudson Avenue
Suite 200
Pasadena, California 91101
Em: mitch@mitchtsailaw.com
Em: ronald@mitchtsailaw.com
Em: brandon@mitchtsailaw.com
Em: rebekah@mitchtsailaw.com
Em: maria@mitchtsailaw.com
Em: hind@mitchtsailaw.com
Em: steven@mitchtsailaw.com
Em: malou@mitchtsailaw.com
Em: info@mitchtsailaw.com
We look forward to working with you. If you have any questions or concerns, please
do not hesitate to contact our Office.
Sincerely,
Mitchell M. Tsai
Attorneys for Southwest Regional Council
of Carpenters