Assembly Adopts L.A. Supervisors’ Secrecy Pretext
On a bipartisan 51-0 vote the state Assembly on Thursday passed a bill allowing local government bodies under the Brown Act to meet privately with the Governor, reports Judy Lin for the Associated Press. The bill is being carried by Republican Assemblyman Cameron Smyth of Santa Clarita as a favor to Los Angeles County Supervisor [...]

Utilities Regulators Now Want to Open up Records
The California Public Utilities Commission, which for years has been allowed to receive information from gas, electric and other regulated industries without having to share it with the public, is reacting to political aftershocks from a huge gas leak explosion in a San Bruno residential neighborhood in 2010 by announcing it will seek an end [...]

California’s No-Tech Transparency Earns Low Grade
California’s recent D-minus for transparency in state government was awarded not just because it has no official agency assigned to police violations of the open government laws. It’s at least as much because in an era when state of the art transparency is coming to mean full display of financial information on “checkbook” Internet sites, [...]

Judge: Public Can See Officials’ Glowing Evaluations
A Los Angeles judge has ruled that the public has a right to know the performance evaluations of deputy district attorneys seeking the top job in an election—if the evaluations are positive. The Metropolitan News-Enterprise reports. Personnel evaluations of a Los Angeles deputy district attorney are, under some circumstances, subject to disclosure under the California [...]

A Sunshine Week Inspiration for the Rest of Us
The late I.F. Stone was a legend among fellow journalists, who gave him high praise for keeping a close eye on official Washington, D.C. But his admirer’s did not follow his example, which did not depend on a fierce competition for “access” to “informed sources” but rather a quiet, patient and tedious-seeming technique: He simply [...]