Asked & Answered

Q: I cover city council meetings for a weekly newspaper in Northern California. City Hall will not release names or addresses for those exceeding city water rationing requirements. The city is in a declared water emergency. I can get a list of high users identified as residential or business water users like motels or restaurants, but no names. What gives? I think I should be able to see names. It is a sale of water from

Q: Yesterday I asked a California Senate committee for copies of the opposition letters they received regarding an active bill and shortly thereafter they faxed seven letters to me. So far so good, but on three of the letters the identity of the writer was redacted. (The other four letters were from organizations, and their identities were not redacted.) Two of the three redacted letters appeared to be from private individuals, not on behalf of any

Q: Our municipality has filed for bankruptcy. As part of this ongoing nonsense the town officials have been doing what ever they can to be sneaky and underhanded. Recently they held a special meeting on July 4. The meeting was to transfer money from a special tax fund for a purpose specifically excluded from use by the bond measure. Since the shortfall in the fund to receive the money had been known for two months, urgency is not really a good reason for