Friday, September 17, 2004 9:43 PM
The L.A. Sunshine Coalition, which is pressing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (BOS) to codify measures they passed on April 2 to make government more open and acces- sible to the public, has issued a call for help from members, jour- nalists and other concerned citizens.
The Board has given its various departments until mid- October to implement necessary changes. During this period, a small ad hoc task force of Sunshine Coalition members are attempting to monitor compliance. “But we need your help,” says Karen Ocamb, a club board member who has been active a sale ader of the coalition. ” If you have difficulties finding or accessing public documents, or attend a government meeting where members seem to violate the Brown Actor come a cross any other compliance or non – compliance issues,we need your observations. We would also appreciate any comments about accessing public documents in a language other than English.”
Any relevant responses should be sent to Ocamb by emailing Karen@lapressclub.org. ” We hope to compile this information into a report we can present to the Board before they vote to cod- ify the measure or decide that their current internal policy is suf- ficient,” added Ocamb.
The measures put forward by the Sunshine Coalition include: 1) ensuring that meetings of supervisorial deputies, 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) when the Department of Children and Family Services’ Inspector General needs to talk about a child’s death, the aspects dealing with policy and administration must be calendared for open meetings, though discussions about the private aspects will be closed.
