Public records requests

We have a public records portal, called Laserfiche WebLink, that hosts many publicly available records. These documents include agendas and minutes for City Council and other public meetings, agreements/contracts, ordinances, resolutions, and more. If you think the record you might be looking for falls under one of these categories, we encourage you to try and find it on our public records portal.

If you cannot find what you are looking for, or if you would like to submit a public records request, you are more than welcome to do so. Using the options below, you can either view existing public records requests to see if any of the records you may be looking for have already been requested by someone else and published online, or you can submit an entirely new public records request.

Requesting records

The City Clerk, acting as the official custodian of records for the City of Santa Ana, accepts the public records requests and coordinates with the appropriate City department(s) to make sure all requests are responded to within the legal time frame. The exception is the Police Department, which may accept requests for records exclusive to their department.

The City of Santa Ana’s standard request form is intended to help you identify the records you are looking for. Please note that requests that are too general in nature may result in a delay, pending further identification of records. Examples of information that may expedite the process include the name or title of the document, i.e., resolution number, building permit address, developer name, date of incident, details of incident, etc. The more specific the description of the request, the better able we are to locate the record you are requesting.

Policy

It is the City of Santa Ana's policy to provide all members of the public broad and convenient access to records and to promptly make the fullest possible disclosure of its records. City staff is available to assist persons requesting records to make focused and effective requests that reasonably describe identifiable records. Some records are exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act. Therefore, whether a request to review records is made in person, by mail, or by other means, it may be necessary in some cases for staff to review the requested records to determine whether those exemptions apply before the records can be made available for review or copying. In those cases, that review will be completed as expeditiously as is feasible.

About the California Public Records Act

In accordance with the California Public Records Act, Govt. Code § 7920.000 et. seq., the City of Santa Ana provides access to public records, except those exempt from disclosure by law. Under Govt. Code § 7920.530(a), local agencies are under no obligation to create records that do not already exist at the time of the request.