Sierra Club Files Appeal in Orange County Lawsuit

14 September 2010, 10:47am

14 September 2010 - Receiving the Orange County Superior Court's final decision on August 9, 2010, which granted Orange County an exemption from the California Public Records Act (PRA), the Sierra Club has decided to continue fighting for access to the County's GIS parcel basemap database in the California Court of Appeal.

The trial court's judge, James J. DiCesare, ruled that the mapping database maintained by the County is part of a "computer mapping system" and is exempted under the PRA's exemption (Section 6254.9) that excludes software from public record. The software exemption states, " 'computer software' includes computer mapping systems, computer programs, and computer graphics systems."

On August 27, 2010, the Sierra Club asked the Court of Appeal to reject the trial court's "faulty reasoning regarding the interpretation of Section 6254.9, and hold, as all previous authority has held, that 'computer software,' as used in this section, means software, not software plus data." Nowhere in the PRA text is "computer mapping system" actually defined. The Sierra Club argues that the exemption for "computer mapping systems" in the law pertains only to software and not to the database that organizes the County's data.

At the time the exemption was written (1988), the word "system" in the phrase "computer mapping system" typically meant a set of software modules used for producing map graphics; the phrase did not mean the underlying data and database. Subsequently, the word "system" in "Geographic Information System" has taken on a larger meaning to refer to the hardware, software, data, applications, and management of GIS technology as an integrated whole. It is this larger definition that the County argued should be applied to "computer mapping system" and therefore exempt their GIS database as part of a CMS. The County does admit (stipulates) that its "OC Landbase" contains only data; it does not contain software.

The Sierra Club argues that the trial court's interpretation "does considerable violence to the plain meaning of the statute, goes against the Legislature's intent as evidenced by the legislative history, and clashes with the public policy of liberal disclosure as contained in the California Constitution and the Public Records Act itself." The Sierra Club cites the recent Court of Appeal decision requiring Santa Clara County to provide its GIS parcel basemap to the First Amendment Coalition, stating, "the holding - that Santa Clara cannot claim copyright protection under Section 6254.9 for its GIS basemap because the GIS basemap is not software - is dependent on that trial court's finding that the GIS basemap is not software."

Although the PRA affirms the public's a right to government information in the same electronic format that the government uses, the trial court supported the County's claim that its Oracle-based "OC Landbase" database is a GIS database, and that GIS databases are part of "computer mapping systems" and therefore, they are covered by the PRA software exemption.

"Is your property being taxed fairly compared to other similar properties?" "Is your application for a zoning variance being determined similarly to other equivalent properties?" These kinds of questions require detailed analysis of the data that government agencies use to make their decisions. Specifically, GIS-compatible, parcel boundary basemap data is the necessary foundation for such analysis.

To keep our government agencies accountable to us, the data that government agencies use to make their decisions must be available to the public so we can challenge the decisions, if necessary. That is the purpose of the California Public Record Act.

GIS Consultant Bruce Joffe, an expert witness for the Sierra Club states, "While recognizing explicit exceptions to prevent public distribution of data that is private or sensitive for security reasons, the PRA requires that government data be made available to the public in the same form that the agencies use it themselves. Looking at the data on-line is not the same as having a copy of the database in your own computer to perform your own kinds of analysis." The Sierra Club uses GIS parcel data such as the OC Landbase to analyze and map land opportunities for its conservation campaigns, including its "Open Spaces, Wild Places" campaign to preserve open space in Orange County.

The PRA law begins with, "Access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state" (Section 6250). And, the California Supreme Court has previously written, "Implicit in the democratic process is the notion that government should be accountable for its actions. In order to verify accountability, individuals must have access to government files." (CBS, Inc. v. Block (1986) 42 Cal.3d 646, 651.)

The Court of Appeal is being asked to decide the meaning of the PRA software exemption: whether the phrase, "includes computer mapping systems, computer programs, and computer graphics systems" provides examples of software, or whether these three items expand the definition of software to include the data used by computer mapping systems, computer programs, and computer graphics systems. If the later, expanded, definition is upheld, then nearly all electronic government data could be exempted, according to Dean Wallraff, a representative of the Sierra Club. "To harmonize the terms 'computer software' and 'computer mapping systems,' where the former term includes the latter, it is necessary either to expand the meaning of 'computer software' to include data, or to constrain 'computer mapping systems' to refer to software only."

Wallraff adds, "The trial court's ruling that the County's parcel data is software under the Public Records Act goes against all previous legal authority. The Sierra Club expects the Court of Appeal to reverse the decision, and make it clear that "software" means software, not data."

If the Court of Appeal decides to take this case, the Sierra Club may ask the GIS community to file a "Friend of the Court" (amicus curiae) brief to substantiate the importance of GIS basemap data to both government agencies and to the general public. Organizations interested in participating in such an amicus brief should contact Dean Wallraff at dw@aenv.org.

Official case documents can be found at the link below.

Source: Bruce Joffe, GISP Organizer, Open Data Consortium project
GIS Consultants
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Piedmont, CA 94611
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Official case documents

GIS Consultants

Open Data Consortium Project

Geo: International