Open Government
Obama, McCain Introduce Spending Transparency Bill
The Secrecy News blog reports that Senators Barack Obama, John McCain and two others have introduced legislation to provide several valuable advances to promote openness and access regarding federal contracting information, including several key upgrades to federal data processing: collecting a broader range of data about contract details, combining citizen access and government-based oversight, monitoring compliance with regulatory protections, and making a number of technical improvements.
Garamendi Faults Closed Toll Road Meetings with Feds
The Earth Times reports that Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, citing serious concerns about the "extreme secrecy" surrounding the Orange Count
y areas Transportation Corridor Agency (TCA) nonpublic meetings with a federal interagency committee, has sent a strongly worded letter to Jane Luxton, general counsel at the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration requesting a more open, public process.
Comment: Stealth in Pay Bargaining Leads to Giveaways
Writing in the Contra Costa Times, Dan Borenstein says the secrecy surrounding approval of government employee contracts needs to end, as San Pablo city officials recently demonstrated when they quietly slipped last-minute changes into a pension sweetener for the city's police officers.
Council Trio Forces Sunshine Ordinance onto Agenda
The Gilroy Dispatch reports that three of the seven members of the Gilroy City Council have instructed the city clerk to schedule a special meeting July 9 to address one of the trios proposed open government ordinance. It has been eight months since he submitted it for review, and the three said they have grown restless with the mayors slow pace.
State Department Cancels Secrecy Watchdogs Access
Steven Aftergood, nationally known monitor of federal (and particularly national security) secrecy practices with the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, reports that his blog/newsletter has been removed from the distribution list for the U.S. State Department history publication "Foreign Relations of the United States" (FRUS) after we reported on errors in several FRUS volumes on March 24 and 26, 2008.
County Staff Gets CalAware Open Government Briefing
The Chico Enterprise Record reports that Californians Awares Terry Francke recently addressed a crowd of more than 70 city, county, and school employees and officials in Glenn County assembled for a three-hour presentation, at the invitation of a county supervisors, on the "top 10 points to remember" about access to local government meetings under the Ralph M. Brown Act and rules of the California Public Records Act.
Free Speech
Nazi Salute Case Heads Back to Court of Appeals
Two constitutional law professors explain the factors involved in deciding if a gadfly had the right to extend a mocking but fleeting Nazi salute to a mayor at a Santa Cruz City Council meeting. The federal District Court in San Jose first ruled in favor of the city and dismissed the gadflys case. Then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard the case, and sent it back to the district court for trial. The judge dismissed the case again, and now the Ninth Circuit is preparing to hear it a second time.
State High Court Asked to Rule on Airport Status
LegalNewsline.com reports that the California Supreme Court has been asked by a federal appeals court to determine whether, for free speech purposes, an airport is a "public forum" under the state constitution.
Fresno Mayor Defends Criticism of Settlement
The Fresno Bee reports that, called into court by a federal judge, Mayor Alan Autry defended comments he had made the previous week about a tentative settlement in a class-action lawsuit involving the city's homelesscomments which seemed to blame the judge.
Minutemen Seek to Regain Border Area Road Sign
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the San Diego Minutemen have asked a federal judge to allow the group to reclaim a piece of Interstate 5 as its assigned spot in Caltrans' Adopt-A-Highway litter cleanup program and to restore the state road sign with the group's name.
Abortion Foes Headed to Court against City of Cypress
The Orange County Register reports that a lawsuit by an anti-abortion group over campus protest arrests at Cypress College seems headed for trial, after the Cypress City Council made no decision to settle; the issue involves the college's use of designated "free-speech zones" and whether non-student demonstrators are required to stay within their boundaries.
Gag Order Issued in Molester Relocation Case
The Monterey County Herald reports that a judge has sternly chastised South County residents who "have been intimidating or possibly threatening" a neighbor who has since withdrawn his offer to rent his Bradley home to sexually violent predator James Lamb. The judge also issued an order prohibiting any court officer, public employee or state contractor from discussing the search for Lamb's future residence.
Court: Nurses Had Right to Wear Union Buttons
The Spokane Spokesman-Review reports that, in a decision http://vlex.com/vid/38380399 setting precedent for medical facilities in California as well, a federal appeals court has overturned a private hospitals ban on staff nurses wearing of buttons stating RNs Demand Safe Staffing." The decision was based on federal labor law, not the First Amendment.
CSU Teacher Allowed to Modify Her Loyalty Oath
The Los
Angeles Times reports that a Cal State Fullerton lecturer who lost her job because she objected to signing a loyalty oath has been reappointed to teach next fall in an agreement worked out between the university and a national civil rights group.
Whistleblowers
Blogger: CHP Settlement Leaves Much in the Dark
San Diego Union-Tribune blogger Chris Reed says the recent almost $1 million settlement with a former CHP official, who said he was punitively hounded for reporting pension spiking abuses and challenging former Commissioner Dwight Helmick for the patrols top post, leaves unanswered questions about the politicizing of the agency and its leadership, a situation that he says reeks and calls for outside investigationbut not by Attorney General Jerry Brown.
Free Press
Reporter Subpoenaed in Grand Jury Leak Probe
The Washington Post reports that a Washington Times reporter has been subpoenaed to testify in a Santa Ana federal court about his sources for a 2006 article on a Chinese spying case in which he allegedly disclosed secret grand jury information.
Commentator: Shield Law Looks Bad for Business
Carter Wood, writing in Forbes, says many in the corporate world are seriously troubled by the potential damage from an overly broad federal media shield. But a reader response points out that one of his key points about the Apple case is factually inaccurate.
Moyers, Rather See Decline in News Coverage
NiemanWatchdog.org reports that Bill Moyers and Dan Rather told the Media Reform conference in Minneapolis recently that news coverage has deteriorated, and blamed it in part on decades of media consolidation that threatens American democracy.
Ken Starr Helping Lawmakers Curb Paparazzi
CNN.com reports that the man whose investigation of President Clinton provided reams of tabloid fodder is now working to help crack down on photographers working for the very publications his efforts once filled.
Bill Protecting Student Paper Advisors Advances
SanFranciscoSentinel.com reports that on a unanimous 10-0 vote, the Assembly Judiciary Committee has approved legislation to protect high school and college teachers and other employees from retaliation by administrators as a result of student speech, which most often happens when a journalism advisor or professor is disciplined for content in a student newspaper.
Student Paper Reaches Deal after Confiscation Flap
The Student Press Law Center reports that student editors at Eureka High School will not be permitted to reprint the April issue of the Redwood Barkwhich the principal ordered removed from the racks three days after it was published but they will be included in the reformation of school publication policies.
Student Paper Stays Alive after Flag-burning Flap
The Associated Press reports that officials at Shasta High School have reversed their decision to shut down a school newspaper that published a front-page photo of a student burning an American flag.
Judge Refuses to Reinstate Santa Barbara Journalists
The Associated Press reports that a federal judge has denied a request by the National Labor Relations Board to reinstate eight workers fired from the Santa Barbara News-Press, concluding that to do so would prevent the paper from exercising what it's asserting as its First Amendment right to combat union efforts to limit its exercise of editorial discretion.
Open Meetings
Editorial: Time for a Berkeley Sunshine Ordinance
Berkeley Daily Planet Editor Becky OMalley comments on why city officials can be shy about more open government, and how citizen reformers are pushing for just that.
Comment: Public Panelists Need to Know the Rules
A commentator on CityWatchLA.com notes what he calls a cautionary tale involving the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council that should be a lesson to others whose board members dont think that rules matter. Too many neophytes come to the neighborhood council table, he says, believing they can all get along, work together, and obtain positive results. So, why worry about the rules?
Complaint: Public Left Out of City Attorney Hire
An editorial in the Half Moon Bay Review takes issue with the citys treatment of the hiring of a contract city attorney as a confidential personnel matter.
Public Information
AG: Names of Cops in Lethal Events Normally Public
Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.s office has concluded in a published opinion that in response to a request made under the California Public Records Act for the names of peace officers involved in a critical incident, such as one in which lethal force was used, a law enforcement agency must disclose those names unless, on the facts of the particular case, the public interest served by not disclosing the names clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosing the names. The opinion conflicts with the policy of the Riverside County Sheriffs Department, according to a report in the Press-Enterprise.
Case on Councilwomans E-mails Is Heard
The Tracy Press reports that its attorneys and those for the City of Tracy have presented oral argument to the California Court of Appeal on the question of public access to a councilwomans e-mails
exchanged with officials at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory when it was exploring the possibility of locating a bio-lab near the city. Focus of the hearing: When the paper dropped the councilwoman as a party after the trial court ruled against it, did it torpedo its own case?
UC Witholding Facts on Its Animal Research
The Sacramento Bee reports that the University of California has begun withholding public records that detail how animal research is done and what scientists hope to learn, saying when people know such things, it leads to crime. But the California Newspaper Publishers Association reports that AB 2296, UC-sponsored legislation with a similar purpose, has been whittled down to simply prohibiting posting the name and address of a UC animal researcher on the Internet with the intent to "incite a third person to cause imminent great bodily harm to the person identified in the posting."
AG: Agency Networks Can Show Officials Data
Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.s office has concluded in a published opinion that if a county maintains a comprehensive database of property-related information that may incidentally contain the home addresses and telephone numbers of persons who are elected or appointed public officials, but who are not identifiable as such from the data, the law does not require the county to obtain permission from those officials before transmitting the database over a limited-access network, such as an intranet, extranet, or virtual private network. The law in question prohibits state or local agencies from post(ing) the home address or telephone number of any elected or appointed official on the Internet without first obtaining the written permission of that individual.
School District Wont Release Employees Pay
The Gilroy Dispatch reports that San Benito High School District Superintendent Stan Rose has declined to release the pay status of a food service attendant who says she gave two recently convicted killers money to buy the handgun used to kill their victim.
City May Stop Keeping Certain Records
The Victorville Daily Press reports that juicy e-mails and old financial documents may not stick around city hall quite as long as they used to, as officials look to change their public records policy.
Secrecy Surrounds Most of Juvenile System
The Long Beach Press-Telegram reports that the laws restricting access to case informationeven statistics with minors identities removedkeeps the juvenile court system largely protected from any examination by the press.
San Francisco Court Records Still on Paper
Thomas Peele, writing in the Contra Costa Times, reports that Criminal court records in San Francisco are indexed for the public in a dozen or so binders containing thousands of pages printed on a dot-matrix system. The books resemble something out of the late 1970s and conjure up images of a mainframe computer bigger than a small house.
Public Records Disclosed Reveal . . .
some of the factors that contributed to the suicide, in the Humboldt County Jail, of a young Hoopa tribal member with an IQ of 67; the records were obtained by college student journalists after they found that almost no one with information on the event was willing to talk to them, according to the North Coast Journal in Arcata.
that animals get sick, suffer and are put to death in needless numbers because of bad management at the Kern County animal shelter, according to a university study on the pound obtained by a humane treatment activist.
that a powerful Japanese gang boss who received a liver transplant at the UCLA Medical Center donated $100,000 to the hospital shortly after the surgery, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Open Courts
Public Allowed to Observe Juvenile Court Case
The Hollister Free Lance reports that after inappropriately ordering the public out of accused murderer Emilio Roman's juvenile court proceedings May 30, visiting Judge Alan Hedegard has released details of the hearing and San Benito Superior Court officials will allow the public into future proceedings in the case.
