A California state appellate court opened records of the Department of Public Health previously withheld from the public. The Center for Investigative Reporting was seeking citations issued to five centers run by the state for developmentally disabled and mentally ill patients. (Sacramento Bee, September 19, 2013, by Denny Walsh)
An editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, September 22, 2013, highlighted other issues of open government in social services. AB9021, before Governor Jerry Brown for his signature, will allow social workers to expose practices that endanger children. At present they can only blow the whistle on violations of the law. The law also allows social workers rather than just county welfare directors to tell their stories in the case a child dies.