Davis attorney teams with small-town publisher again in lawsuits

Attorney Paul N. Boylan estimates he’s filed 30 public records lawsuits on behalf of newspaper editor Tim Crews.

“He’s one of my favorite people,” Boylan said, adding, “He sued me once.”

More than 20 years ago, Boylan made some disparaging remarks about Crews on a radio show in response to Crews’ investigation of a school district the lawyer represented. The defamation case settled for a “nominal” amount, according to Boylan.

But like a curmudgeon’s version of a romantic comedy, that inauspicious start got the two men talking about their mutual love of the First Amendment.

Since then, the Davis-based attorney and the longtime editor of the Sacramento Valley Mirror in the tiny Northern California town of Willows have won important court victories and awards from free speech groups.

“It’s one of those collaborations that comes along once in a lifetime,” Boylan said.

News stories about the pair have often contrasted the sharp-dressed Boylan with the “bearlike” Crews. After they appeared together on the cover of California Lawyer in 2010, Boylan said people emailed him to ask why “Santa Claus looks so angry.”

Now they are heading into the breach again. Last week, they sued the state’s agriculture agency after it declined to provide justification for charging 20 cents a page for electronic versions of emails relating to the Glenn County Fair. Crews v. California Department of Food and Agriculture, 80002748 (Sac. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 5, 2017).

Both sides agree the agency is legally required to hand over the emails in response to Crews’ request under the California Public Records Act. But Crews said the agency is using an increasingly common tactic — charging exorbitant fees in order to dissuade people from seeking public records at all.

“I’m interested in how they derived this 20-cents-a-page cost for electronic records,” Crews said. “They cannot tell me. That’s a critical point.”

“We’ve checked with our legal office and we cannot comment on ongoing litigation,” said an agency spokesperson by email.

The majority of the complaint consists of emails between Crews and the agency over the cost of providing the information. In response to an answer that 20 cents is “in line with or less than our sister agencies,” Crews replied the agency can only legally charge him their actual costs.

Crews sees the cost as a life-or-death issue for small communities. Government waste, he said, is more damaging in poor rural communities like his that have fewer resources to begin with. That’s why he’s sought information on spending for courtroom renovations and seemingly small government outlays that add up.

They also have two other active records cases: Crews v. California Fair Services Authority, 80002227 (Sac. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 27, 2015) and Crews v. Hamilton Unified School District, 15CV01394 (Glenn Super Ct., filed Jan. 16, 2015).

Crews praised Boylan as a “heavy lifter” who does the real work in most of these cases — and who could be making a lot more money doing something else with his time. Both said that Boylan often has trouble collecting attorney fees even after they win cases.

In May, Boylan and another newspaper editor client, North Coast Journal Editor Thadeus Greenson, won a Freedom of Information Award from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for their work getting information relating to a police excessive force case.

“I think most of Paul’s clients are up against agencies that just make calculated risks that his clients won’t sue,” said Jim Ewert, the publishers association general counsel. “But of course, with Paul as their lawyer, they do.”

Ewert added, “Both Paul and Tim have had stellar results in taking on these agencies.”

Boylan, meanwhile, loves to talk about how Crews went to jail for five days in 2000 for refusing to divulge a source. When the judge held him in contempt, Boylan said, Crews responded, “The feeling is mutual, your honor.”

He added that the Mirror, which relies on a combination of volunteers and paid staff, will take on fights that bigger papers have avoided. In order to keep it going, Crews sells ads, writes stories, takes photos and even delivers papers.

“It’s a grueling schedule, but it’s only 80 hours a week,” Crews said.

The time behind bars was worth it, Crews adds. To this day, nervous sources will call him with information, then mention his stint in jail as a reason they can trust him, he said.

“It may be a tiny paper, but the moral authority of the Valley Mirror is widely recognized,” Boylan said.

Both men say they often get accused of being liberals, despite the fact that Boylan is a registered — though “conflicted” — Republican and Crews is a longtime member of the Libertarian Party. A former logging company worker who never quite finished college, Crews calls himself a “social liberal and fiscal conservative.”

But he said many people in his rural community view conservativism as “not rocking the boat,” rather than the demanding that government be transparent and frugal.

“The people who think I’m a flaming liberal come by my desk and see a legally sawed off 12-gauge,” Crews said.

The gun isn’t a prop. The paper’s Facebook page is often littered with death threats and angry comments. The building next door to the paper’s office burned down a few years ago in a mysterious fire. In 2004, Crews’ much-loved German-Shepherd-Rottweiler mix, Kafka, was poisoned in what he believes was an intentional crime.

A few months ago, someone threw a noose against he paper’s front door in broad daylight. Such incidents have made it harder for the cash-strapped paper to find interns, Crews said.

But, he added, many public agencies that used to stonewall him now take his calls.

Meanwhile, the 74-year-old Crews worries there won’t be people after him to take up the cause. Not only are small town papers going away, he said, most of the local high schools don’t even have school papers anymore.

“He is a First Amendment public records hero icon,” Boylan said.