An attorney specializing in freedom of information law alleged the Chico City Council violated the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, by discussing employee pay during closed session; not reporting actions taken by the council in closed session; not reporting the votes by council members in closed session; taking up matters not exempted from open meeting rules; and discussing or taking action in closed session on items not on the agenda. (Chico Enterprise-Record, January 23, 2015, by Ashley Gebb)
An editorial in the local newspaper praised the Los Altos City Council for adopting a policy that goes beyond state law in expanding open government. The council is setting up an open government page on the city’s website and posting council agendas on the site eight days before meetings. (Los Altos Town Crier, January 21, 2015, by the Town Crier Staff)
The Menlo Park City School District cancelled a closed session for January 9 to consider a proposal for a charter school after The Almanac protested that the matter was not exempt from public discussion. (The Almanac, January 12, 2015, by Barbara Wood)
In the meantime, Robb Korinke of CA Fwd, January 12, 2015, writes that the public sector is behind non-profit and private sector in using open data to for a number of vital purposes including improving citizen involvement in public decisions. Korinke says governments must make an investment in making data accessible with a priority on focusing “…resources on ‘high value’ data, and…an emphasis on metadata – or structural and descriptive tagging of the information.”