California transparency headlines
From Sunshine Review
This article is a list of transparency related news from California.
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| Report It • | The Good • | The Bad • | The Ugly | |
California government pays more interest than companies
California collected about $80 billion in taxes in the fiscal year (ended June 30), compared with $3.6 billion in revenue for Houston-based Diamond. California has never defaulted on its debt. The state paid 1.5 percentage point more in interest, about $785 million in additional cost for taxpayers over the 30-year life of $1.75 billion in Build America Bonds.
California and many other states are not requiring municipalities to file timely financial information. The disclosure that state and local governments provide to investors is in the “dark ages,” said Gary Pollack, of Deutsche Bank AG’s Private Wealth Management unit in New York.
“The municipal bond market is the last bastion of hidden information,” said Timothy Koch, chairman of the finance department at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina.
U.S. taxpayers are paying as much as $6 billion a year because public officials’ financing is in the dark in the $2.8 trillion tax-exempt bond market, according to data and interviews from more than a dozen states. However, the recession is forcing municipal governments to cut spending or raise taxes.[1]
New California Law Attempts to Sidestep CPRA
The bill, AB 1336, would permit cities to place cameras on public street sweeping vehicles throughout California in order to photograph parking violations. However, what has freedom of information rights activists angered is the portion of the bill which explicitly exempts these photos from public records requests. By creating an exemption outside of the CPRA, the California legislature establishes their power to ear mark exemptions within future bills and thus sidestep the CPRA in an obvious move towards secrecy.[2]
State lawmakers urge against pricey ballot measures
Oregon lawmakers have taken steps in pushing back the policies by suspending for two years sections of a voted-in law mandating longer sentences for repeat property offenders and drug dealers. The lawmakers passed a new set of restrictions keeping costly initiative measures at bay.
Washington lawmakers passed a law to save almost $1 billion by essentially ignoring some state education initiatives. One of these called for annual teacher raises.
Washington Democrats suspended a initiative that makes requirements for training for home-care aides who serve the elderly and disabled.
"One of the biggest concerns that lawmakers have is the financial straitjacket that initiatives can put on legislatures through big spending proposals or through spending and revenue caps," said Jennie Drage Bowser of the National Conference of State Legislatures.[1]
Los Angeles Judge and two others indicted
Superior Court Judge Harvey Silberman, 52, and two political consultants, Evelyn Jerome Alexander and Alan Randall Steinberg, have been indicted on charges of offering a bribe to Deputy District Attorney Serena Murillo. They were allegedly trying to drop out of the municipal election. The grand jury transcript detailing the alleged scheme has not been released.
The charges were solicitation of money or valuable consideration to induce a person not to become a candidate for public office and Silberman, Alexander and Steinberg each face up to three years in state prison if convicted.
Alexander and Steinberg are partners of SJA Strategies, a public affairs firm, and have pleaded not guilty.
Silberman, who on paid leave pending the outcome of the case, is awaiting arraignment, which has been postponed until a judge from another county is assigned to the case.[1]
The Investigation the County Doesn't Want You to See
"At some point in 2007, a whistleblower at California Children's Services, a program run by the county of San Diego that provides wheelchairs and other medical devices to children with physical disabilities, filed a complaint with the county alleging improprieties within the program.
The county launched a widespread investigation into the allegations that continued for at least 13 months in 2007 and 2008, records show. The investigation led to disciplinary action against county employees and changes to the county's ethics policies, but the report the investigators produced, and all the information it contains, is being kept a secret."
Legal entanglements between East Palo Alto, Page Mill worsen
"East Palo Alto's biggest landlord has filed another lawsuit against the city, adding to the ongoing legal entanglement between the two over rent hikes.
In the suit filed Jan. 6 in San Mateo County Superior Court, Woodland Park Management LLC, Page Mill Properties' management company, alleges that East Palo Alto officials refused to hand over public documents related to a peer review of the city's rent control system.
The city of Berkeley, whose own rent control ordinance was the model for East Palo Alto's, completed the review last year."
Board takes over security of its meetings
"Orange County supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to seize back control of security at their meetings after deputies swarmed the boardroom earlier this month, intimidating gun activists from speaking out against Sheriff Sandra Hutchens’ new concealed weapons policy.
“It is to assert our authority that we’re ultimately in charge of security,” said County Supervisor Chris Norby, who sponsored changes to the board’s meeting rules along with County Supervisor Janet Nguyen.
The controversy over boardroom security stems from a Jan. 13 board of supervisors meeting where gun activists were confronted by placards at the board meeting warning people against bringing firearms into the building. In addition, numerous SWAT deputies and plain clothes officers were in the audience and questioned three activists."
Sheriff's officials' texts show combative view toward gun activists
"Transcripts of text messages sent by Orange County sheriff's officials during a November 2008 Board of Supervisors meeting shows the law enforcement leaders used their cell phones to ridicule activists and even supervisors during a public hearing on gun permit policies.
The messages, obtained under a public records request by a group named Ordinary California Citizens Concerned With Safety, reveal a combative tone by sheriff's command staff toward the activists. Some county supervisors questioned whether that defensiveness triggered the large security presence that met activists when they returned to a January meeting seeking to again criticize Sheriff Sandra Hutchens' gun policies."
Court: Coroner Reports Exempt Under Public Records Act
"Coroner and autopsy reports from suspected homicide deaths are exempt from disclosure under California’s Public Records Act, the Third District Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.
Reasoning that the reports present a concrete and definite prospect of criminal law enforcement proceedings, the court rejected a former-California-attorney-turned-publisher’s request for records relating to a Sacramento woman whose bullet-riddled body was found in an open El Dorado County field in 1971.
Phillip Arthur Thompson was convicted in 2008 of the murder of Elizabeth Cloer after a 2003 analysis of DNA left at the scene tied him to the crime."
Some autopsies can be kept secret, court says
"In a ruling that alarmed some open-government advocates, a state appeals court said counties can withhold autopsies and other coroner's reports from the public if they are part of a criminal investigation likely to lead to prosecution.
The decision by the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento is the first in California to exempt any category of coroner's reports from disclosure under the state Public Records Act, which makes most state and local government documents accessible."
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