The City answered a follow-up that flagged a case-log discrepancy with a blanket "no records responsive" response, filed and closed twenty-two minutes apart.
The City denied a request for proof of email delivery just twenty-two minutes after it was filed, leaving an unresolved discrepancy between a case-log entry and a previously released document. In an earlier request, the City produced an email from an inspector’s mailbox that did not list the requester as a recipient, even though the case log stated the inspector had replied directly to him. The requester then filed a follow-up request for delivery headers or logs that would show if the email actually reached his address. The City Clerk’s office closed this second request with a "no records responsive" message less than half an hour after receiving it. This rapid closure did not identify who conducted the search or explain how the City determined that no delivery records exist for an email it had just released. While the City is not required to create new written corrections on demand, it must provide a record-based account of its search for the existing delivery records requested.
The City Clerk's office released a Case 23-009185 email under R.25-4711 E.3. Eight days later, the same office closed a follow-up request on the same case, R.26-39, with: "The City does not have any records that are responsive to your request" E.10. The portal record shows the follow-up was submitted at 12:08 PM and closed at 12:30 PM, a twenty-two-minute sequence E.11.
The follow-up did not ask the City to reproduce the same email. It flagged a discrepancy between the case log and the produced message: the case log said the inspector "replied back" to the requester, while the email the City had just produced showed four other recipients and did not list the requester E.3. The follow-up asked for delivery headers or logs showing the requester's address as a recipient, or, in the alternative, a written confirmation that no such record exists and that the case-log line should be corrected E.11.
The alternative request for written confirmation or correction is not something the CPRA requires the City to create GC § 7922.530. The live issue is the primary request: did the City search for any delivery header, trace, or log showing the email actually reached the requester? The same office had just released the email from the inspector’s Outlook mailbox E.3 E.9, then closed the follow-up twenty-two minutes after filing with no visible search account, identification of the responsible official, or statutory basis GC § 7922.540 E.10 E.11.
In plain language: the City produced an email that did not show the requester as a recipient, then quickly denied a follow-up asking for proof that the email had actually reached him. The problem is not that the City had to write a new correction on demand; it is that the City gave no record-based account of whether it searched for the delivery proof the follow-up requested.
The CPRA requires production of disclosable public records, a written determination within the statutory period, and, when records are withheld or access is denied, identification of the responsible official and the basis GC § 7922.530 GC § 7922.535 GC § 7922.540.
Anticipated City defense: R.26-39 asked for proof that did not exist, so "no records responsive" was accurate.
Answer: That may answer the alternative request for a written confirmation or correction, because the CPRA does not require the City to create a new record GC § 7922.530. It does not answer the first request for existing delivery records. The City had just produced the email E.3, the requester flagged a concrete mismatch, and the City closed the follow-up twenty-two minutes after filing with no visible search account E.10 E.11. The narrow defect is the unexplained nonexistence conclusion, not a claim that the City was required to rewrite the case log on demand.
The remedy point for a false no-records certification is anchored in GC § 7923.000. ---