For 12 years, Gary Baley collected public records on a daily
basis from the San Benito County Recorder’s Office.
For 12 years, Gary Baley collected public records on a daily basis from the San Benito County Recorder’s Office.
As president of a company that publishes 25 different types of documents in a weekly abstract, Baley counted on having hard-copy access so he could scan the pages and sell them in his publication to area businesses.
His clients include property appraisers, financial institutions and newspapers, among others.
But since September, when the Recorder’s Office changed its policy for distributing those records – in some cases Baley said the office withheld them – his level of services has dropped. And with it, so has Baley’s business.
“The county stopped producing (hard copies),” Baley said. “There was no notice whatsoever.”
With his livelihood as a San Benito County businessman at stake, Baley filed suit against the county in early April alleging the Recorder’s Office is violating the California Public Records Act.
Baley – who has five employees at his business, Abstract Information Services – has always obtained the records from the San Benito Land Title Corp. As a resident of Pacific Grove, he also runs similar operations in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
Each day he would go to San Benito Land Title Corp., which paid the county to receive copies of the public records. And he would access the information in a “community room” that is open to the public. There, he would scan the pages into his laptop and later build a database of images to publish.
“Basically, I was making my own copies of public records.”
The county’s changes in September, however, called for eliminating hard copy documents altogether. Instead, the Recorder’s Office switched to an Internet service that must be subscribed to for $500 per month.
Recorder John Hodges said the county switched to “get a ‘paperless’ office” – to increase efficiency for a previously “labor intensive” process. Hodges said the $500 fee covers costs of producing the records on the Internet.
Seven companies currently subscribe. Needless to say, Baley isn’t one of them.
Aside from the added costs, Baley said the Internet service’s capabilities don’t allow him to obtain images of the records – which has always been the same downfall, for Baley’s needs, of the computer at the Recorder’s Office.
Baley even offered to buy the Recorder’s Office a C.D. writer to install on its computer, which would solve his problem, he said. But the county refused.
“There’s no provision for making your own copies there,” he said.
Furthermore, he said the contract for the monthly Internet service stated “subscribers cannot divulge that information to any third parties,”
Unfortunately for Baley, divulging information to third parties is the essence of his business. He said the county’s program is “restricting dissemination of public information.”
“I mean, that’s just bizarre,” he said.
Baley said his contentions led to a series of meetings between a county lawyer and Hodges, sessions Baley thought would “straighten it out.”
But that didn’t happen, he said.
County Counsel Karen Forcum would not comment because the case is in a premature stage.
“We don’t comment too much on existing litigation matters,” she said.
Hodges said everything at the Recorder’s Office is public information, and he was surprised by the suit against the county.
“The bottom line is, he has access to all that information at no charge,” Hodges said. “You can go down to the hall of records there, sit in front of the computer, and you can copy all the records.”
Baley said the subsistence of his business banks on timeliness – as much as it does the content of the records. Many of his customers, he said, “rely on daily access.” Baley would not say how many customers he has in San Benito County.
Since September, he has sent an employee to record the documents, one by one, at the Recorder’s Office.
“But if you’re trying to get in and see the entire public record, it’s almost impossible to continue doing that,” Baley said.
On Tuesday, the case returned to the Superior Court for a hearing. The county requested several points of Baley’s suit be stricken because they are “irrelevant allegations, which do not give rise to any material fact,” according to court documents.
Judge Harry Tobias granted several of the requests. The next hearing is July 10.
