Craig Labadie is city attorney for Concord and president of the
League’s City Attorneys Department. He can be reached
at clabadie@ci.concord.ca.us.
Labadie gratefully acknowledges the assistance provided by
Kourtney Burdick, the League’s deputy general counsel, in
drafting this article.
The purpose of the Public Records Act (PRA) is to give the public
access to information that enables them to monitor the
functioning of their government.1 Its fundamental
precept is that governmental records shall be disclosed to the
public, upon request, unless there is a specific reason not to do
so.2 Most of the reasons for withholding a record are
set forth in the PRA.