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SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Aug. 09, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following the City of San Clemente’s lawsuit against the Transportation Corridors Agencies (TCA) seeking the release of public documents detailing the millions of dollars the TCA has spent and continues to spend in its failed quest to sway public support for its failing SR-241 Toll Road Extension, TCA has failed to produce most of the required public documents. Instead, they have decided to spend tens of thousands of Orange County Taxpayer dollars on legal fees in order to keep these documents secret and out of the reach of those looking for the TCA to justify the tens of millions spent for lobbyists and consultants. The TCA’s failure to to comply with the California Public Records Act is a violation of California law.
The City of San Clemente filed its initial Public Records Act request seeking these documents on March 13, 2018. Despite communications from the TCA in April that they would provide the document, TCA failed to provide any documents or respond to any further communications until after the City filed its lawsuit on June 19, 2018. Following the lawsuit, the TCA sent some, but far from all, documents to the City. Instead of simply providing all remaining public documents to the City of San Clemente, the TCA has decided to use expensive lawyers to stall and file hopeless motions just to keep this public information away from public scrutiny.
Public documents that the TCA has failed to turn over as of August 1, 2018 include:
These documents will clearly show that the TCA has spent more money on lobbyists over the past twenty years than it has spent on building new toll roads during this same period of time. There are also numerous unanswered questions from the few documents already produced by the TCA, including:
“I do not understand why the TCA refuses to release these public documents,” said Kathy Ward, San Clemente City Councilmember and TCA board member. “If they have nothing to hide, they’d simply allow the public to know how they’re spending over $3,000,000 a year on lobbyists and consultants in order to push their extremely unpopular toll road proposal. I believe that the TCA is refusing to release these public documents because if taxpayers knew how the TCA was spending millions every year on lobbyists instead of actually helping fix traffic problems in Orange County, they would demand they immediately stop wasting their money.”
The hearing on the City’s Public Records Act lawsuit against the TCA is expected to be held in September.
Contact: Erik Sund (949) 361-8341
Email: SundE@San-Clemente.org