Wednesday, April 17, 2002 9:11 PM
Karen Ocamb’s efforts singled out for praise by club President Patt Morrison
After unrelenting press scrutiny for allegedly trying to kill a ballot initiative in secret, and under intense pressure from the Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition led by the L.A. Press Club and the California First Amendment Coalition, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously A pril 2 to allow greater public access to government deliberations and records.
“I think these changes are long overdue,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told the Los Angeles Times. “I think it’s a significant first step.” A number of the adopted measures were first proposed by Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Board of
Supervisors (BOS).
The measures include: 1) ensuring that m e e t i n g s of super v i s o r ial de p u t i e s , Commissions, task forces and governmental committees and subcommittees are subject to the Brown Act; 2) official documents, including background materials, pertaining to BOS actions, must be posted on the web; 3) a full transcript of the BOS meeting will be posted on the web; 4) a uniform policy regarding public documents, using the Chief Administrative Office’s as a model, must be created for all departments, which must report their compliance in four weeks; 5) the BOS renewed its own internal policy and added annual seminar training for depart-men the ads; and 6 ) all county bodies will also receive seminar training on the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act.
Additionally, the BOS ordered that closed meetings be tape recorded and that when the Dept. of Children and Family Services’ Inspector General needs to talk about a child’s death, the aspects dealing with policy and administration must be calendered for open meetings, while discussions about private aspects will be closed. The L.A. Press Club initially got involved in the “sunshine” issue under the direction of former president Mary Moore. Subsequently board member and independent journalist Karen Ocamb took over, winning praise from LAPC president Patt Morrison for her extraordinary efforts in developing the Sunshine Coalition. Ocamb has worked closely with her co-chair Ana
