A former newspaper editor and publisher says ‘balderdash” to a city attorney’s justification in closing a crucial meeting on a 35-unit development in Livermore. -DB Contra Costa Times Commentary June 7, 2009 By Tim Hunt THE LIVERMORE City Council and its legal advisers have been playing fast and loose with the state’s open meeting act. The council met in closed session on April 13 to discuss strategy for its hostile annexation of the Hilliker Place

Students in a animal-health program claim the program was eliminated after an incomplete investigation and that the Hartnell College Board of Trustees failed to post notice of their meetings on the topic and destroyed their notes of the meetings. The District Attorney is investigating whether the Brown Act applies in this case. -DB Salinas Californian June 5, 2009 By Leslie Griffey Animal-health students are rebelling against a proposal to cut their Hartnell College program. The

The San Jose Mercury News is asking the police to release a 911 tape of the fatal shooting of Daniel Pham, but a city council committee voted to withhold the tape until after a grand jury investigation. -DB San Jose Mercury News June 4, 2009 By Sean Webby and Lisa Fernandez For now, San Jose police won’t be forced to release the 911 audiotapes documenting the fatal police shooting of a knife-wielding man last month,