SEC. 67.29. INDEX TO RECORDS.
§ 67.29
The City must create and maintain a public index describing the types of records held by its departments, agencies, and officials—organized to help the public understand what information exists, where it is kept, and how to access it. The City Administrator oversees the index's creation, coordinates with all departments to identify their record types, and keeps it updated on the city website and in public libraries.
San Francisco must make a catalog that lists what kinds of documents and records each city department keeps. The list should explain what types of records exist, which department has them, why they're kept, how long they're saved, and how people can find them (by name, date, project, etc.). The City Administrator is in charge of creating and updating this catalog. Each department has to help by telling the Administrator what records it maintains. The catalog won't list every single file about every specific person, but it will tell you where to find that type of record and how to request it. The index will be kept up to date on the city website and available at public libraries.
- Complex:The section contains overlapping and repetitive requirements about index content, organization, and maintenance spread across multiple sentences, making the core obligations somewhat difficult to extract.
- Could be simpler:The text could be streamlined by consolidating the several descriptions of what the index 'shall' contain (e.g., 'organized to permit a general understanding,' 'shall clearly indicate,' 'shall clearly and meaningfully describe') into a single, unified statement of the index's purpose and scope.
AI-generated · claude-haiku-4-5 · informational only, not legal advice.
Official text
The City and County shall prepare a public records index that identifies the types of information and documents maintained by City and County departments, agencies, boards, commissions, and elected officers. The index shall be for the use of City officials, staff and the general public, and shall be organized to permit a general understanding of the types of information maintained, by which officials and departments, for which purposes and for what periods of retention, and under what manner of organization for accessing, e.g. by reference to a name, a date, a proceeding or project, or some other referencing system. The index need not be in such detail as to identify files or records concerning a specific person, transaction or other event, but shall clearly indicate where and how records of that type are kept. Any such master index shall be reviewed by appropriate staff for accuracy and presented for formal adoption to the administrative official or policy body responsible for the indexed records. The City Administrator shall be responsible for the preparation of this records index. The City Administrator shall report on the progress of the index to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force on at least a semi-annual basis until the index is completed. Each department, agency, commission and public official shall cooperate with the City Administrator to identify the types of records it maintains, including those documents created by the entity and those documents received in the ordinary course of business and the types of requests that are regularly received. Each department, agency, commission and public official is encouraged to solicit and encourage public participation to develop a meaningful records index. The index shall clearly and meaningfully describe, with as much specificity as practicable, the individual types of records that are prepared or maintained by each department, agency, commission or public official of the City and County. The index shall be sufficient to aid the public in making an inquiry or a request to inspect. Any changes in the department, agency, commission or public official's practices or procedures affecting the accuracy of the information provided to the City Administrator shall be recorded by the City Administrator on a periodic basis so as to maintain the integrity and accuracy of the index. The index shall be continuously maintained on the City's World Wide Website and made available at public libraries within the City and County of San Francisco.
(Added by Ord. 265-93, App. 8/18/93; amended by Ord. 287-96, App. 7/12/96; Proposition G, 11/2/99)