Gov. Brown is ready to sign a budget that would allow local officials to opt out of some provisions of the Public Records Act as a way to save money, drawing protests from California newspapers.
Gov. Jerry Brown is poised to sign legislation that could reduce the public's access to basic government records that have long been used to scrutinize the actions of elected officials.
The proposal, a late insert into the state budget that lawmakers passed last week, would allow local officials to opt out of parts of the California law that gives citizens access to government documents.
Under that law, officials now must respond to a request for records from a member of the public within 10 days and are required to make the documents available electronically. The change, which Brown requested as a cost-cutting measure, would allow the officials to skip both requirements with a voice vote.
The same vote would permit them to reject requests without explanation and would no longer require them to help citizens identify existing information.
Brown and other defenders of the legislation predict that it would have little effect — that most local governments would choose to abide by the old rules. But the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. called the measure a stealth attack on government transparency and a blow to the public's right to information.
"If the local agencies were predisposed to share information with the public," association lobbyist Jim Ewert said," there wouldn't be a need for a public records act to begin with."
Ewert, who wrote to Brown this week urging him to veto the bill, said the governor's record on open government is spotty. He cited Brown's 2012 decision to temporarily suspend open-meeting laws for local governments and three closed-door or private phone meetings that the governor had with Los Angeles County supervisors to sell his prison overhaul in 2011.
"I wouldn't give him very high marks," Ewert said. "His actions don't demonstrate a strong commitment to government transparency.''
News organizations rely on California's open-records law to help expose information about state and local government that may otherwise remained hidden.
The Times has used the law to find the results of child abuse investigations and the amount of pension money paid to public retirees. Times reporters have also used the law to aid in uncovering questionable spending in public institutions such as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and in revealing corruption in the city of Bell, where officials paid themselves outsized salaries and imposed illegal taxes on residents.
Bell resident Donna Gannon, 59, worries that changing the law could disable what little civic engagement exists in cities across the state. "Too much is going to be hidden from us," she said. Government officials, she noted, "work for us."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget-open-records-20130619,0,659990.story
The Rats want to be able to hide all their wrongdoings from the people of California.
Gov. Jerry Brown is poised to sign legislation that could reduce the public's access to basic government records that have long been used to scrutinize the actions of elected officials.
The proposal, a late insert into the state budget that lawmakers passed last week, would allow local officials to opt out of parts of the California law that gives citizens access to government documents.
Under that law, officials now must respond to a request for records from a member of the public within 10 days and are required to make the documents available electronically. The change, which Brown requested as a cost-cutting measure, would allow the officials to skip both requirements with a voice vote.
The same vote would permit them to reject requests without explanation and would no longer require them to help citizens identify existing information.
Brown and other defenders of the legislation predict that it would have little effect — that most local governments would choose to abide by the old rules. But the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. called the measure a stealth attack on government transparency and a blow to the public's right to information.
"If the local agencies were predisposed to share information with the public," association lobbyist Jim Ewert said," there wouldn't be a need for a public records act to begin with."
Ewert, who wrote to Brown this week urging him to veto the bill, said the governor's record on open government is spotty. He cited Brown's 2012 decision to temporarily suspend open-meeting laws for local governments and three closed-door or private phone meetings that the governor had with Los Angeles County supervisors to sell his prison overhaul in 2011.
"I wouldn't give him very high marks," Ewert said. "His actions don't demonstrate a strong commitment to government transparency.''
News organizations rely on California's open-records law to help expose information about state and local government that may otherwise remained hidden.
The Times has used the law to find the results of child abuse investigations and the amount of pension money paid to public retirees. Times reporters have also used the law to aid in uncovering questionable spending in public institutions such as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and in revealing corruption in the city of Bell, where officials paid themselves outsized salaries and imposed illegal taxes on residents.
Bell resident Donna Gannon, 59, worries that changing the law could disable what little civic engagement exists in cities across the state. "Too much is going to be hidden from us," she said. Government officials, she noted, "work for us."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget-open-records-20130619,0,659990.story
The Rats want to be able to hide all their wrongdoings from the people of California.