Without some freedom to protect sensitive information, security is compromised. Therefore, the health and safety of the people of California is enhanced by giving governing bodies the authority to meet with the Governor in closed meetings to discuss security matters that may include sensitive information.

Here are transcripts of the three illegally secret discussions, released on CalAware’s demand, providing some notion of what kind of “security matters that may include sensitive information” we can expect to see discussed by governors and local officials behind closed doors if this bill passes.

September 20 preliminary closed session about concerns with implementing the Realignment.

September 21 phone conference closed session with Governor Brown.

September 26 closed session face-to-face meeting with Governor Brown.

public,

The state Public Utilities Commission on Monday proposed opening up public access to most records under the agency’s purview, a dramatic shift that would allow Californians to view documents detailing the safety records of natural-gas pipelines running under their neighborhoods.

The move comes 18 months after the explosion of a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. pipeline in San Bruno that killed eight people, and four months after a Chronicle investigation revealed that the vast majority of documents at the commission are barred from public access, including investigation reports on natural-gas pipeline accidents and safety audits of utilities such as PG&E.

The practice of shielding documents from public view spawned criticism by victims of the explosion and others, and prompted Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, to write a bill requiring such disclosure.

Vote set for May

On Monday, Yee called the utilities commission’s proposal a “good first step.”

Terrie Prosper, a spokeswoman for the commission, said the proposed change would improve public access to records. “The public should have the widest possible access to information we possess,” she said.

In a written statement, the commission added that its public access regulations are “outdated and cumbersome, and often delay rather than facilitate access to records requested.”

A 60-page draft resolution, which the five members of the utilities commission will vote on in May, would change the agency’s rules to make documents publicly available unless a utility can show why the records should be hidden from view.

Currently, regulations require a vote of the commission before any unreleased paperwork may be made public – a vote that comes after the panel consults with utilities.

Putting records online

The proposal calls for automatically disclosing the outcomes of safety-related investigations and creating an online index of the commission’s available records and an online “safety portal” that houses all safety-related records.

California law now exempts the utilities commission from the state’s public records law, a contrast to other states, where such documents are routinely available.

Yee said the commission’s announcement is a good starting place but that his proposal, SB1000, should still move forward.

That legislation would repeal a 1951 state law exempting the agency from the state’s Public Records Act unless the commissioners vote to allow public access to specific documents.

“The fact that CPUC is willing to do much more than they are doing right now to be open and transparent – I think that’s a good thing,” Yee said. “But the best step is to support my bill and to pass it.”

Full proposal

To view the proposed regulations or to comment, go to links.sfgate.com/ZLIF.

Marisa Lagos is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. mlagos@sfchronicle.com

California, home of so much brilliance and innovation, should be ashamed that Texas and Kentucky lead the nation in using the tools of technology to make their government spending more transparent to their citizens. Even worse is that 35 other states scored higher than California in a recent analysis by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Perhaps most humiliating of all is that the technology that could have put California in the top tier in 2012 is not expected to be up and running until … 2017.

California rated a D minus in this survey.

“When Californians can summon a satellite image of the Capitol building from a cell phone in a matter of seconds, it is reasonable to expect that they should also be able to see what’s happening inside the building just as easily,” Pedro Morillas, CalPIRG’s legislative director, wrote in the new report, “Following the Money 2012: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data.” “It is disappointing and embarrassing that California is not only lagging behind, but actively moving in the opposite direction when it comes to keeping pace with certain standards.”

The pace of this state’s trudge to the 21st century in government transparency could become a liability for Gov. Jerry Brown as he tries to persuade voters that he has squeezed as many efficiencies as he could out of state government in asking voters to approve a quarter-cent sales tax increase and higher income tax rates in November.

In many states, such a claim would be more readily verifiable. The top-rated states, such as Texas and Kentucky, allow journalists, watchdog groups and curious citizens to comb through spending records – comparing historical data, viewing all contracts, tracking grants and economic development projects – through a centralized, searchable, downloadable site.

California’s central site to track government spending – albeit cumbersome to navigate and incomplete in its data – was shuttered by Brown in November 2011 on the rationale that users should go directly to the primary sources of information.

“At the end of the day, the problem is that in order to get all the budget information, you have to go to dozens of (department and agency) websites if you wanted to get the whole picture,” Morillas said.

At least that is the challenge until 2017, when the one-stop-shopping website is supposed to open up. But the website for the project ( www.fiscalca.gov) does not exactly inspire confidence. It is less than user friendly – and its timeline for the project stops in April 2012 with the awarding of the contract. I had to make a phone call to its public-information officer to find out the date when the project is expected to be completed – and to ask why it was not included in the timeline.

The reason for the omission? “A glitch in the software” that the technicians could not figure out. And I had to ask why it will take until 2017 for California to achieve the online budget transparency that Texas, Kentucky and many other states are offering today. The short answer: Oh, it’s all so complicated, and there are so many departments and agencies involved, and they would need to change their billing and accounting practices to synchronize everything.

It’s not just the budget software that is hopelessly out of date and difficult to navigate. The ability to search and collate campaign-finance data on the secretary of state’s 1990s-era website (ss.ca.gov) is as clunky and convoluted as it was when Democrat Debra Bowen took office in 2005 with a pledge to modernize it. She hasn’t.

It’s as if the politicians in power are going out of their way to make it difficult for the citizenry to track their campaign contributions or how they are spending our money.

By the way, put aside your partisan-tinted glasses on this issue. Of the top-scoring states in the national survey, four of their governors were Republicans, three were Democrats. Of the lowest-scoring states, two had Democratic governors and three had Republicans.

Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat whose efforts on behalf of government transparency have earned him adversaries in university and government bureaucracies, has introduced SB1002 to require that public documents and data that are electronically available be user friendly and searchable by widely available software.

“For me, open government and transparency have got to be a hallmark of any democracy,” Yee said last week. “What’s the point of electing people if you can’t find out what they’re doing and how they’re spending the money they’ve been given?”

It seems unconscionable in these times, when generations of technology development are measured in months, that Californians have to wait until 2017 to catch up with Kentucky’s online access to its government.

“It will be antiquated by the time it’s up and running,” said CalPIRG’s Morillas. He hesitated, then added, “In 2017, California will have a better score.”

This is a disgrace, especially for a state establishment that is about to ask its electorate to pour more money into an opaque government.

Personnel evaluations of a Los Angeles deputy district attorney are, under some circumstances, subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled.

In a decision Friday, Judge Ann I. Jones said the public interest outweighed any privacy objections that district attorney candidate Danette Meyers might have, particular since the evaluations were quite positive.

The litigation stemmed from a MetNews request that all deputy district attorneys running for the office’s top job consent to the release of their evaluations for the last three years, along with records of any disciplinary actions. After Meyers and fellow deputy Steve Ipsen declined, the newspaper made a CPRA request.

The District Attorney’s Office objecting, citing the act’s exemption for “unwarranted” invasion of privacy, leading to the writ petition. The MetNews withdrew its request with respect to Ipsen after he failed to return his nominating papers by the March 14 deadline.

Meyers did not respond to the writ petition, leaving the MetNews and the district attorney’s records custodian as the litigating parties.

Jones rejected the newspaper’s contention that the public interest in knowing about the discipline and recent performance of district attorney candidates necessarily outweighs any asserted privacy interest of the individual candidate. Instead, the jurist conducted an in camera inspection of Meyers’ personnel file and employed a balancing test.

The standard for balancing the interests, the judge said, is “how probative the information was on the question of [the candidate’s] qualifications for office against how damaging the information actually is to the interests of the office and public in candid evaluations, and the privacy interests of the candidate herself.”

Based on that review, Jones said, there was nothing in Meyers’ file that “could be expected to chill the frank and candid evaluation of deputy district attorneys by their supervisors” or that would embarrass her personally. The reviews, the judge said, were “stellar.”

Meyers did not return a call requesting comment.

Query: So if the law enforcement-related performance evaluations of a political candidate to become the state’s second most powerful prosecutor were unflattering, the public would not have a right to know?

As this year’s Sunshine Week stirs proclamations and manifestos stressing the need for open government, it’s easy to forget that transparency assumes a citizenry that cares enough to scrutinize that which is made available. But how often do we encounter such persistent, painstaking watchdogs, with steady attention to open information rather than a clamor for details concerning a particular controversy, after which keen interest in public issues fades?  And how reassuring, even inspiring it is when we do come across the few who seem to pay close and constant attention to what public records show—and who share what they find interesting with the rest of us, not for pay but out of a sincere sense of public service? Consider this remarkable citizen profiled by Sena Christian in the Roseville Press Tribune (photo by Philip Wood).

Roseville resident Theresa McInnes loves the country she’s called home since becoming a U.S. citizen in 1959 – and this sentiment has prompted her to become a proponent of accessing public records.

Over the past decade, she has been a regular visitor to the Roseville City Clerk’s office where staff knows her by name. The retired government auditor has asked for hundreds of pages worth of documents and publishes her subsequent reports in the Friends of Roseville FOREfront newsletter. She isn’t a member of the citizen’s watchdog group.

“I love this country and the open government it promises to us all,” said McInnes, who originally hails from the island of Norderney. “In that area, the people of Roseville are getting short shrift from their city. With my work, I would like to be their voice.”

McInnes exemplifies someone who takes advantage of the California Public Records Act, which passed in 1968 and is similar to the federal Freedom of Information Act. Sunshine Week started March 11 and runs through Saturday as a way to highlight these laws that allow people to access public information.

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote the public’s right to know what the government – from the local to federal level – is doing and why, and is spearheaded by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

“The idea is to take a week during the year to focus on open government to get people talking about it. My sense this year is that it’s growing,” said the association’s Executive Director Richard Karpel. “It’s important for the quality of our democracy. If people don’t know what their government is doing, it’s hard to know how they should vote or what direction they should take.”

The city of Roseville received 233 public records requests from January 2011 to the present, according to statistics provided by city spokeswoman Megan MacPherson. The City Clerk’s office spent 221 hours responding to these requests.

Those statistics don’t include the several requests made monthly by Press Tribune reporters, nor do they include hours spent fulfilling requests by other city departments.

Roseville Mayor Pauline Roccucci said the city must maintain transparency to ensure people’s trust in their local government.

“It’s the citizen’s right to have access to public records and know their tax dollars are being used wisely and that their elected representatives are making good ethical decisions,” Roccucci said.

McInnes first researches the rules and regulations related to the specific issue she plans to investigate. Then she goes to the City Clerk’s Office and fills out a Public Records Request specifying the information she wants.

She said this department is usually helpful in fulfilling her request, which they must provide immediately or within 10 working days if the records aren’t readily available. But that’s when the helpfulness ends, she said.

“The big problem is the city manager’s office with the advice from the city attorney,” McInnes said.

She often battles with the city on her requests, including her current attempts to obtain records concerning the Roseville Community Development Corporation. She was informed that the city “does not maintain these records (as the corporation) is a private, nonprofit corporation that is separate and distinct from the city of Roseville,” according to a letter from City Clerk Sonia Orozco.

“But they’re operating with our money,” McInnes said.

She has researched all sorts of issues through the years, including travel and meal expenditures. She is still frustrated with the city’s report on the Westfield Galleria arson in 2010 and believes critical questions weren’t answered.

Karpel said citizens should be persistent in seeking information that is legally available.

“People just have to be vigilant,” he said. “And if they run into walls, look for organizations that can help.”

California received a “D minus” when it comes to government spending transparency, according to Following the Money 2012: How the States Rank on Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data, the third annual report of its kind by the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG).

“At a time when anyone with a smart phone can summon a satellite image of the capitol building in seconds, we should be able to see what’s happening inside the building just as easily,” said Pedro Morillas, CALPIRG legislative director.

Officials from California and 46 other states provided the researchers with feedback on their initial evaluation of state transparency websites. The leading states with the most comprehensive transparency websites are Texas, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, West Virginia, and Arizona.

Morillas added, “As home to the tech industry, it’s disappointing and embarrassing that California is not only lagging behind, but actively moving in the wrong direction when it comes to keeping pace with current online transparency standards.”

This year’s report found that 46 states now provide an online database of government expenditures with “checkbook-level” detail, a major increase from 32 states two years ago. Twenty nine state transparency websites now provide information on government expenditures through tax code deductions, exemptions and credits – up from eight states two years ago.

“Putting spending information online saves money, and bolsters public confidence in government,” said Morillas. “The state legislature could use a whole lot of both right now.”

States that have created or improved their online transparency have typically done so with little upfront cost. In fact, the site that was recently taken down in California cost just $21,000 a year. States with top-flight transparency websites actually save money for taxpayers, while also restoring public confidence in government, and preventing misspending and pay-to-play contracts.

This is what California calls online transparency.

• the Attorney General’s recent opinion on what may be discussed in a local body’s closed session on real property negotiations—and the difference that may make in agency practices;
• three examples of misleading meeting agendas CalAware has been challenging;
• the mass purging of government email;
• the new law on access to public college and university foundation records;
• the first serious challenge to legislative secrecy in Sacramento; and
• the court-approved “reverse” public records act procedure and the dilemma it poses for those requesting records about private people and organizations.

 The Berkeley police chief’s decision to order a sergeant to a reporter’s home insisting on changes to a story continued to draw heavy criticism Sunday, with the city’s police union saying they are “gravely concerned” about his actions and the impact on officers’ ability to maintain community trust.

Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan sent an armed police sergeant to Bay Area News Group reporter Doug Oakley’s home at 12:45 a.m. Friday because he wanted a story that he perceived to contain inaccuracies changed online.

First Amendment experts on Friday said Meehan’s action was “an attempt at censorship by intimidation and an abuse of power.”

Tim Kaplan, a police officer andBerkeley Police Association president, said the union “stand with our community and share in their concerns about the appearance and correctness of the chief’s orders,” in a statement released Sunday afternoon on behalf of the 160-member force.

“We are committed to providing the best possible service to the community, and protecting the constitutional rights of the citizens of Berkeley to whom we ultimately answer. We do not believe that the actions taken by Chief Meehan represent the will, spirit or sentiment of the membership of the Berkeley Police Association.”

Meehan apologized Friday, calling his actions an “overzealous attempt to make sure that accurate information is put out.”

The chief was not available for comment Sunday. In a statement, Meehan said he is planning an independent review of the department’s policies and practices on timely releases of information, which will be sent to the City Council and community.

Mayor Tom Bates could not be reached for comment late Sunday.

Oakley, 45, covers Berkeley for this newspaper chain and had reported on a meeting Thursday in which Meehan tried to explain to about 150 angry residents his department’s failure to provide information in the days after the Feb. 18 beating death of Peter Cukor, 67, outside his Berkeley hills home. Cukor allegedly was attacked by a 23-year-old Alameda man, who has been charged with murder but will undergo competency tests to determine if he can stand trial.

That night, Cukor had called the department’s nonemergency line during a period when police were ordered to respond only to 911 calls due to a potentially volatile Occupy march.

Oakley’s story posted online at 11:20 p.m. Thursday reported that Meehan apologized to the community for the slow response. Meehan though, said he apologized only for not informing the public right away. Meehan called and emailed Oakley about the story, but Oakley was asleep. After the rap at the door, Oakley changed two paragraphs in his story.

Jim Ewert, general counsel of the California Newspaper Publisher’s Association, said it wasn’t out of line that Meehan wanted the article altered, but that he ordered the sergeant to Oakley’s home for the changes.

“If the police chief believed the tone was improper or even if the facts were subject to interpretation, the appropriate response is to call the editor. Or write a letter to the editor or an (opinion piece),” Ewert said.

A 45-year-old woman was the whistleblower who called attention to the hostile work environment at a Sacramento hospital. Recently, the former cardiac surgery physician assistant was awarded an astronomical amount of money in damages.

Roughly four years ago, the woman was fired from her position at Mercy General Hospital after she repeatedly made complaints to the human resources department about constant sexual harassment in the workplace. She suffered through this hostile work environment from 2006 to 2008. A jury in a federal court recently awarded the woman with $168 million. Of that sum, $125 million was for punitive damages and $39 million was for psychological damage.

While this case might mark the most amount of money awarded to an employee in such a case, tales of the deplorable behavior at the hospital proved that she deserved every penny of it. The woman was constantly berated by male surgeons. Many of them would talk down to her and tell her she was bad at her job because she was a woman. One surgeon even stuck a needle in her arm and called her a name.

The rest of the male medical staff at the hospital would also participate in the inappropriate behavior. When one man propositioned the woman with inappropriate behavior, the surgeon in charge of them just laughed. The more the woman complained about the environment to the human resources department, the worse they treated her. In all, she filed 18 complaints about the behavior until she was eventually let go. Hospital officials claimed in court that she was let go because she fell asleep on the job and failed to show up for one of her shifts. She said that was a blatant lie.

The only thing keeping her at the position was the passion she had for her work and the desire to be affiliated with a hospital that carried such a high amount of prestige among the medical community.

Open space advocates filed suit Monday to get an accounting of how the Fort Ord Reuse Authority spent nearly $100 million in federal money.

Keep Fort Ord Wild is asking a judge to compel FORA to release documents it first requested under the Public Records Act in December. Molly Erickson, attorney for the group, said FORA responded with incomplete records and said it does not have or has destroyed the rest.

At issue is a $99.3 million grant, the Environmental Services Cooperative Agreement, issued in 2007 for cleanup of munitions and explosives on Fort Ord.

The records supplied say the majority of the money, $82.1 million, purchased an “environmental insurance policy.” Erickson said FORA representatives said they did not have a copy of the policy and didn’t have a right to request one unless a claim were filed.

FORA spokeswoman Candy Ingram said the policy is a fixed-rate contract with Chartis, formerly American International Group, to administer the cleanup work with independent contractors. AON insurance, in turn, underwrote Chartis, guaranteeing the job would be completed at cost by 2015.

Contracts between the two companies are private, she said. With few exceptions, FORA does not have purview over the individual invoices submitted as part of the ongoing work, she added.

All of this comes at a time when FORA and local legislators are seeking an extension of the agency’s sunset date from 2014 to 2024. Assemblyman Bill Monning, D-Carmel, said the authority is the best means of completing the cleanup and transition of the former Army base to civilian use.

Michael Salerno, spokesman for Keep Fort Ord Wild, said the public has no way of knowing if an extension is advisable if it cannot see documentation of the agency’s work since the base closed in 1994.

“It seems premature to advocate unconditional continuation of an agency which does not freely share the basic accounting records a public agency is expected to maintain,” he said.

Keep Fort Ord Wild, a coalition of recreation enthusiasts and environmental preservationists, is fighting development on the former base, including the Monterey Downs project in Seaside. It was instrumental in blocking the Whispering Oaks business-transit center in February.

Michael Houlemard, executive officer of FORA, could not be reached for comment Monday. Ingram said he had been served the petition but had not reviewed it for detailed comment.

Erickson said FORA has also told the group it destroys paper documents after scanning them electronically. However, she said, it does not have a records-retention policy spelling out how long those files are kept and regularly deletes e-mails after 90 days.

“FORA is destroying records nearly as fast as the public can request them,” she wrote in the lawsuit, “and is doing so without a written and approved plan for doing so.”

Ingram said FORA has complied with each of the group’s records requests, turning over thousands of pages of documents. Erickson said many of those were packets from board meetings and unsearchable electronic records, forcing the public to spend hours sifting through irrelevant documents in search of a simple answer.

Because FORA has not been forthcoming, Erickson said, Keep Fort Ord Wild was forced to seek a court order. What happens next, she added, is up to FORA.

“Sometimes it can take many years if the public agency digs in its heels and fights the public’s right to access.”