Just what is Sunshine Week?
It’s a time to celebrate, reflect on, and, most importantly, act on our right to open government. Sunshine Week is a time for us to focus on the necessity of government accountability to the public—and how we make sure we have it.
March was chosen for Sunshine Week to coincide with the birthday of James Madison, who said ”…a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
Here in Oakland, we’re commemorating the tenth anniversary of the passage of our Sunshine Ordinance.
The League of Women Voters invites you to join us to for a discussion about Oakland’s Sunshine Ordinance with City Attorney John Russo and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier on Thursday, March 15, at 7:30 PM in Hearing Room 1 at Oakland’s City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza:
- Why do we need a Sunshine Ordinance in Oakland?
- How is it working?
- What more needs to be done?
Why would you be interested in this? Well, read on…
Oakland Police Department Fails Public Records Audit
Californians have a right to access information concerning the conduct of the people’s business under the California Public Records Act. But exercising that right is another question, as a recent audit of police records shows.
Californians Aware, a Sacramento-based public interest organization conducted an audit of public access to law enforcement information last December. Auditors visited 216 agencies in 30 of California’s 58 counties, from San Diego to Siskiyou, including 184 police and sheriff’s departments and 32 California Highway Patrol area offices. The auditors asked for information expressly identified by law as available to the public: the police chief’s employment contract, the officers’ salary schedule, the most recent death in custody report, and the name, occupation, birth date, and sex of all persons arrested for robbery, burglary, or sexual assault during a two-week period, along with the date, time, and location of the arrest.
The auditor who visited the Oakland Police Department was directed to a third-floor records office where he waited in line for 45 minutes. He was then told that both oral and written requests should be submitted at the crime-analysis office on the top floor. This office was quiet, seemingly little visited by the public. The analyst was friendly but said the department simply could not handle such requests unless the person making the request worked for the City because of inadequate staffing. She said this had been the case for two years. More than an hour after entering the building the auditor had not found anyone to take a written request. [See the report by the Californians Aware auditor for Oakland.]
In March of 2005 the League of Women Voters of Oakland reported results of a records-request audit we had done. The average was 70 percent success when asking for a copy of or permission to see a specific public document. A group of students at Fremont High School duplicated a few of the same requests. Their success rate was 50 percent. Neither of these figures build the public’s confidence in their government.
The League of Women Voters, having crafted and nursed to life a Sunshine Ordinance in 1997, wonders what it takes to insure that public servants obey laws to serve the public. Education and training are always prime means to achieve the goal. In Oakland, the City Attorney’s office and Dan Purnell, the Executive Director of the Public Ethics Commission, spend a lot of time doing just that. But the results are unsatisfactory. Some critics say there is too much turnover in City staff. Others feel that serving the public is less than a top priority and that this attitude permeates City departments.
There are many City staff who do try hard to find records, but lack good indexing and records-keeping tools to do that job. Time is lost and money wasted when records cannot be found. Public trust in government shrivels and a wall of animosity rises, further complicating a testy relationship.
If we all work with the League and other organizations, such as Californians Aware, the California First Amendment Coalition, and the ACLU to educate people about their rights (not to mention how shaky some of those rights are now), it might encourage local governments to obey the California law and State Constitution.
The League of Women Voters is where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement. Join the League of Women Voters where leaders are actively engaged in effecting change at the local, state and national level.
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Comments
DTO,
Actually, the “Beware the Slate Mailer,” article was neither removed from the Guardian nor written by Helen Hutchison (both of which you suggest in your comment to the EBX).
The article was written by Barbara Newcombe and is right here. You can also find it by selecting “Barbara Newcombe: Ethics Matters” under the Columnists list.
Another way to find any article, without needing to know who the author was, is to look at the “All-in-1 list of stories” (under the navigational links).
As soon as I find a little time to test it, I’ll turn on a search/archive feature to make it easier to find previous content.
Sorry for any confusion!
Jim Ratliff
Publisher/co-editor
Grand Lake Guardian
I believe that you are confusing my column with Barbara Newcombe’s. You will find her column on the Slate Mailer is still posted.
The League of Women Voters of Oakland is a member of the Oak to Ninth Referendum Committee. We have responded to your criticisms of our positions. I believe that we should agree to disagree.
The League most definitely supports the new lobbying disclosures rules. If you wish to hear about all of activities, you are welcome to join us and receive our newsletter.
You also asked how the League reaches consensus on controversial issues so quickly. The League is a nonprofit incorporated membership organization, with just slightly over 300 members in the Oakland chapter. The League conducts studies of broad issues at the local, regional, state and national level. Members are invited to read League prepared materials on these issues and attend discussion meetings where they reach consensus on specific questions pertaining to these issues. The consensus reached results in Positions held at each level of the League (see http://www.lwvoakland.org/lwvopositions.html and http://www.ca.lwv.org/lwvc/issues/index.html for example). Each year the members review the locally adopted Positions to determine whether there is still member agreement with them and whether they need to be updated, and then readopt them at Annual Meeting, or vote to take on a new study. (The process is a biennial one for regional, state and national positions.) The members authorize the Board to take action based on the Positions. The Board of a local League can take actions based on their own locally adopted Positions and/or based on the parts of Positions adopted at the regional, state or national level that are relevant to local issues. It is the Board that makes the decisions to act based on the consensus previously reached by the members.
For example, last year's Measure N bond campaign for a palace library accepted tens of thousands of dollars in large contributions from a dozen businesses that hold or seek contracts with the City. On the question of whether the League approves of such corruption, you wrote, "We (the League) believe the Measure N campaign was conducted openly and honestly", going on at length in this vein. ( http://grandlakeguardian.org/index.php/lwvoakland/2006/12/05/measure_o_clean_grassroots_educational)
How did LWVO's members or board reach consensus on this approval of corrpution?