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A&A: Closed door meetings benefitted labor union at cost of public tidelands

FAC November 15, 2011

Q: After holding closed door negotiations with a public coalition that included the local union, the Port of San Diego announced  a hotel development deal that included a Project Labor Agreement with the union.  The development will be build on public tidelands, which sacrifices the Port Master Plan-designated parkland.  Were the extensive secret labor negotiations legal? A: There are two basic steps in determining whether a meeting is subject to the Brown Act. First, a

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Safety trumps speech at Morgan Hill high school

FAC November 14, 2011

A Morgan Hill high school acted legally when it ordered students to conceal T-shirts bearing American flags on Cinco de Mayo, a federal judge ruled. Because Mexican American and Anglo students had previously wrangled about clothing on Cinco de Mayo, Live Oak High School officials reasonably anticipated campus disruption and safety problems, U.S. District Judge James Ware of San Francisco said. A lawyer for the students wearing the U.S. flag said he would appeal, the San

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A&A: Accessing county’s payments to a doctor now under arrest for molestation

FAC November 12, 2011

Q: I am a journalist and victims advocate. I wanted to know about whether it was possible to get records of payments made by all  County agencies–including the District Attorney’s office–to a child psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was arrested for molesting hundreds of boys and was under contract to the courts for four decades. We have reason to believe the DA’s office hired him as well, which would make their prosecution of him a conflict of

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Prop. 8 donors not entitled to anonymity, judge says

FAC November 8, 2011

Donors to Prop. 8, California’s anti same-sex-marriage initiative, have no right to remain anonymous, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled. Backers of Prop. 8 had argued that campaign contributors could be subject to harassment and threats unless they were allowed dispensation from disclosure laws. But U.S. District Judge Morrison England disagreed, arguing that Prop. 8 supporters, who won 7 million votes in 2008, could not make the case that they were a persecuted group. According

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The odds against WikiLeaks

FAC November 7, 2011

Is the WikiLeaks movement, faced with myriad internal and external challenges, on the precipice? And if so, will this marriage of technology and transparency emerge in new forms? In a New York Times essay, media writer David Carr examines the troubles bearing down on WikiLeaks and asserts that the challenge to similar approaches might be less technological than the simple fact that there’s a shortage of whistleblowers with access and willingness to risk prosecution. Full

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