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Public Records: Search Tips

Public Records Portal: Quick Tips for Searching

 

Use the dropdown menu under Search Type to select the type of document you’re looking for.
 

Enter your search criteria into at least one of the search fields.

  1. In a “full text” search, the Search Term field locates the term within the text of the record. The search term can be combined with other data fields associated with the document type.

    • Full text searches look for each word independently. For example, Main Street will find records with “Main” and “Street,” whether or not the words are next to each other.

    • To search for an exact phrase in a full text search, you can type the phrase within quotation marks. For example, “City of Burbank.”

    • In a full text search, a “?” (question mark) can replace a single character. You can use it to replace any letter or numeral about which you are unsure. For example, for ‘pebble’ you can write peb?le.”
       

  2. “Keyword” fields are search fields associated with the specific document type.

    • If you are unsure of the spelling of a name such as Brown/Browne or unsure of an exact address, you can use “wildcards” (asterisks) before and after your search term(s) to increase results, for example:

      • Brown* - any keyword that may have multiple spellings (Brown or Browne)

      • Examples of wildcard address searches:

        • 100* - any keyword that starts with 100 (100 N Main, 1000 E Ann, 1001 E Huron)  

        • *MAIN* - any keyword that contains MAIN in it (100 S Main, 110-112 S Main)

        • 100 N* - any keyword that starts with 100 N in it (100 N Main, 100 N Fourth)

For date field searches, the proper format is mm/dd/yyyy.

Click Search. Your search results will be listed in the Results box to the right of the search fields. (If the search takes too long, refresh the page, choose the search type again, and add more criteria to narrow the search.)

Clicking on the document name or row opens the document in the same window.
Close the display with the X in the top-right corner of the display window.

To open a document in a new window, click the [] icon. 

 

Please Note

Some files are extremely large and may take long or generate an error.  In those events, please contact the city for alternate methods of access.

 

Pop-Up Blockers 

On your PC or Mac, and on your mobile devices, any time you are opening a downloaded document in a browser, you may need to turn off a pop-up blocker in order to view the document.

 

Need Help?

If you need assistance with this page, please email [email protected] or call (818) 238-5851.

 

LET US KNOW IF YOU FIND ANYTHING THAT DOESN’T WORK.