Shasta County is backing AB 1821, a bill that would change some California Public Records Act deadlines from calendar days to business days.
In a June 30 letter to Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, Board Chair Chris Kelstrom wrote on behalf of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors that the county supports “important and practical updates” to the law. The letter says the county has seen a steep rise in Public Records Act requests, with 265 in 2023, 518 in 2024, 1,321 in 2025, and more than 1,200 through mid-June 2026.
The county says many of those requests require staff time across nearly all departments to locate, review, redact and produce records, and that the work pulls personnel away from other public services. The letter says AB 1821 would replace certain calendar-day timelines with business-day deadlines, including the initial deadline to determine whether a request seeks disclosable records, which would move from 10 calendar days to 10 business days.
The letter also says the bill’s definition of unusual circumstances — including voluminous records searches, coordination with multiple departments or agencies, data extraction, and disruptions caused by emergencies or cyberattacks — better reflects the practical realities local agencies face.
The letter was signed by Kelstrom as chair of the Board of Supervisors and copied to Shaw, Yoder, Antwih, Schmelzer & Lange, the Rural County Representatives of California and the California State Association of Counties.
