(CalAware Weekly comprises this plus the previous three posts)
Free Press
Gag denied A judge has again denied a public employee unions bid to stop the Daily News in Los Angeles from publishing members names, positions and salaries in a lookup database on its website.
Police clashes Law enforcement officers blocked news media coverage in several incidents in the San Diego wildfires, according to a report by the local ACLU; a San Diego Police Department spokesman responded that the police have the authority to protect evacuees from unwanted press interviews.
Offending column The Benicia Herald, a daily newspaper, has fired its editor for a political column he wrote that upset two heavily advertising candidates in next weeks city election.
Shield veto threat The White House is threatening to veto the federal shield law bill, H.R. 2102, if Congress passes it, which USA Today predicts is likely.
Free Speech
Flame retardant Statements posted to a website on homeowner association issues attacking an attorneys professional integrity were merely a private campaign of vilification and not a matter of public concern meriting anti-SLAPP protection, ruled the Court of Appeal in an unpublished decision.
Open/Secret Government
Paper trace Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) has put a hold on a bipartisan bill to reverse President Bushs 2001 executive order giving presidents and former presidents more power to halt indefinitely the release of their White House records. The House-originating measure is authored by Californias Henry Waxman. Meanwhile candidate Hillary Clinton, asked about releasing her husbands papers, stayed true to message and said theyll be available after being processed.
Pumping irony Contra Costa Times columnist Tom Peeles reaction to Governor Schwarzeneggers boast, in vetoing AB 1393, that My administration’s commitment to the public records act is unwavering"Really? Does the governor actually believe the things his staff writes in his name? Meanwhile Schwarzeneggers office has told the Daily Journal in Los Angeles (sorry for the link lackits website is subscription only) that it will not identify those whom it consults for recommendations on the appointment of judges, although it has said it would release the names to the Assemblyby January.
Land deal secrets The Legislative Analysts Office has concluded after two years of research that the Department of Fish and Game and other California state agencies keep too many documents secret when they buy land and do not have consistent standards to ensure the public is paying reasonable prices, reports the San Jose Mercury News.
Public Information
Day labor employers The California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune have appealed a judges ruling barring the City of Vista from disclosing a list of those who have registered as an employer of day laborers. The ACLU obtained a temporary restraining order in September against release of the names to protect the employers privacy.
Records Released Reveal . . .
A city official denied pension credit for time she never worked; an admired police chiefs retirement marred by an issue of possible pension-spiking; a legal aide to the Insurance Commissioner secretly helped regulated companies in their lawsuit against his boss; Long Beach subsidies for a summer Sea Festival run by a private association were wasted, according to an online news site.
Open Meetings
A Fate Worse Than Indictment? The Orange County DA wont prosecute four members of the Capistrano Unified School Board who accepted his report that over a six-month period they discussed business unlawfully in closed session and otherwise violated the open meeting law dozens of times. But waitOC Weekly reports that the county Republican Central Committee did something unprecedented by unanimously voting to call for the resignations of four of its own elected officials who sit on the Capistrano Unified School District Board.
Whistleblowers
Dummy up! The Bush administration isnt the first to punish insiders who go public with inconvenient facts. But, James Sandler tells Salon, its the most ferocious in resisting Congressional efforts to protect them.
