Copyright 2005, Vallejo Times-Herald

Benicia moves toward more openness

(Vallejo Times-Herald 2/13/05) -- Government agendas at the click of a mouse, immediate disclosure of agenda material within the past year and an oversight watchdog committee to judge accessibility complaints could soon change the face of Benicia government.

City leaders will decide the fate of a proposed open government ordinance in the next few months.

Council members Tom Campbell and Elizabeth Patterson worked for more than a year to get to this point. But And Benicia Herald Editor John Moses has pushed to figuratively open the doors to Benicia City Hall for several years in his opinion columns.

Moses met privately with Mayor Steve Messina two years ago to push a so-called "sunshine" ordinance and is credited by each council member as "fanning the flames" of open government at City Hall.

No one speaks ill of the city administration's interest in creating a more transparent government.

But the present isn't the point, a potential for future abuse is, say sunshine ordinance proponents, who are more worried about future abuse. With clear open government openness standards, advocates say the public would have a point to challenge resistance from city officials.

Such stonewalling happened in the late 1990s, according Moses. In a November 2004 column, he recounted that "a high ranking city official" threatened "to shut off the Benicia Herald's access to City Hall information because he didn't like the staff."

Former Mayor Jerry Hayes said Moses blew out of proportion the 1997 situation. Moses referred to was blown out of proportion. It involved former Benicia Herald reporter Nathan Salant, Moses and City Manager/Police Chief Otto Giuliani.

Hayes insists no one, including Giuliani or anyone at City Hall, shut out the Benicia paper or the public.

At no time, did Giuliani or anyone at City Hall shut out the Benicia Herald or the public, Hayes added.

Moses also wrote that "City Hall officials routinely ignored state law by demanding to know why I and my staff wanted access to city files." In a December 2003 column, he said a city employee told him to come back another time that was "convenient" for the employee and he "might" fulfill the document request.

"Under the new ordinance, no future administration would be able to repeat the mistakes of the past," according to Moses wrote. Moses declined formal comment for this article. Giuliani was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

Mark Morodomi, a supervising attorney with the Oakland City Attorney's office, has a strong belief said he believes strongly in what open government ordinances can do. Without knowing Benicia's past problems, Morodomi offered simple advice:

"Sunshine is a great disinfectant," said Morodomi.

When Campbell and Patterson met to hear citizens' accessibility concerns, they already had local sunshine ordinance examples to guide their deliberations.

The two city leaders looked to Oakland as one of their models.

Oakland

Oakland's open government ordinance includes a 10-day notice for City Council and commission meetings.

"It was a shock and a sea change for the City Council," Morodomi said, referring to when the ordinance first took effect in 1997. It's hard to comply with the lengthy notice, but the public has benefited by being alerted to agenda items of interest in advance, and that's more important," he added.

In comparison, Benicia's proposal requires six-days' public notice before regularly scheduled council meetings. For the past several months, the city has posted agendas six days in advance.

Of course, an openness standard is no assurance city leaders will respond as expected.

The Oakland City Attorney's office had to recuse itself last year when the City Council opted against disclosing certain police and firefighter salaries. The city lost a legal challenge and had to disclose the salaries, which was called for in its own openness standard.

Despite the salary controversy, Oakland resident Barbara Newcombe said her city's open government ordinance works far better now than it did in the beginning.

Newcombe is a member of Oakland's League of Women Voters and a staunch open government advocate. She wrote the book "Paper Trails: A Guide to Public Records in California" with Stephen Levine in 1996.

The first two directors of Oakland's Public Ethics Commission weren't right for the position, Newcombe said. But Newcombe praised the current director, Dan Purnell, who has spearheaded the city's move for more openness.

The ethics commission, which hears residents' government accessibility concerns, seemed unwilling to take strong stands until Purnell was hired, Newcombe said.

Oversight committee

Benicia's Sunshine Committee is tweaking the structure of an oversight committee after several residents, including many from the business community, expressed concerns.

Chiefly, local business leaders questioned the power that appointed oversight committee members would be given as well as the makeup of the committee's makeup.

Open government proponents said such an oversight committee is key to enforcing any sunshine ordinance provisions. However, the committee agreed to exclude provisions requiring journalists, lawyers and members from specific organizations.

Still, residents such as Larry Fullington, who has been active in Benicia politics for years, has his doubts about such a commission and an ordinance in general.

"I know of no problem," Fullington said of the current city administration.

Fullington said there are "efficient, good people" at Benicia City Hall that shouldn't be bothered by an "another layer of government."

Most Benicia residents don't care about a sunshine ordinance, Fullington said.

Benicia City Manager Jim Erickson has said a committee isn't needed because it would striptake over responsibility that should remain with the City Council.

An oversight committee would require more staff and city funding, Erickson added.

Bruce Brugmann, editor and publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, is a past member of San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance Task Force.

Brugmann has high praise for what San Francisco has accomplished through its open government provisions, including oversight from the task force.

"We're the only ones who've done it right," Brugmann said of the 1993 ordinance passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

San Francisco's task force meets once a month to hear citizen complaints typically involving the reluctance of a department to reveal a public document, Brugmann said.

"The department has to defend its stonewalling action in public," Brugmann said. Even if the public record request is rejected by the task force, the request still will bring more sunshine to an issue, he said.

"Every city has its own issue," Brugmann said.

Ordinances

Local governments typically have two different types of open government ordinances, said California First Amendment Coalition Executive Director Peter Scheer. One, mainly underscores the state's public records standards and strengthens disclosure provisions, while the other offers specific provisions, he said.

Vallejo's sunshine ordinance provisions are more a reiteration of state standards, said Vallejo City Attorney Fred Soley.

Vallejo has had its ordinance since 1999. It includes requirements for where agendas are posted - City Clerk's office, online and exterior bulletin board outside City Hall.

Soley said he hasn't heard of any open government complaints from residents.

Fulfilling record requests

Vallejo City Clerk Allison Villarante said she and two assistants get about 350 public document requests a year. Generally, she said, they have no problem filling requests quickly unless it's a research item.

"The idea is to get (the public) the information as quickly as possible," Villarante said. If the request requires research, the clerk's office will keep the person making the request updated on when they can pick up the item, she said.

Most requests are completed right away and involve little research, Villarante said.

The City Clerk's office has the past three years of resolutions, ordinances, meeting minutes, agreements, contracts deeds and agenda reports in filing cabinets, said Vallejo Administrative Clerk Juni Brito. In addition to that, public records are stored on microfiche and microfilm.

Most public records older than the current three years are stored in more than 200 boxes in the City Hall basement, Brito said.

All public documents the City Clerk's office has are entered into a database.

"As long as we know the document exists, we should be able to find it," Brito said.

Open discussion

Stephanie Gomes, however, said Vallejo may not violate the letter of the open government laws, but it violates their spirit of them.

Gomes and her activist group, Vallejoans for Community Planned Renewal, rallied against plans to bring a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant to Mare Island. The two companies proposing the LNG plant pulled out early in 2003.

"LNG was a good example of how the community had to make their place at the table," Gomes said.

Mayor Tony Intintoli Jr. said the city makes every attempt to inform the public about what business is being conducted.

That's not enough, Gomes said. She said her group has to get city leaders' attention before issues are decided.

"You know there is work going on behind the scenes," Gomes said. The Vallejo City Council constantly has unanimous votes, Gomes said.

Such closed door decisions don't happen and are illegal, Intintoli said.

"We make every attempt to be responsive to the public and the media," Intintoli said.

Late Meetings

Late meetings, certainly aren't the first thing that come to mind for many thinking of open government standards. But some, including Benicia's city manager, say a time frame for meetings needs to be included.

Benicia's open government ordinance has no provision for such a time frame.

"When meetings go beyond 11 p.m. ...in the evening, the public cannot participate in a meaningful way," Erickson wrote in a city staff report last month.

Benicia has had a history of regular bi-weekly meetings going late into the night and sometimes early morning.

Long meetings that go late into the evening are problems in Oakland as well, Morodomi said.

Typically, the Oakland City Council will move up controversial items on its agenda so those who want to speak can do so, Morodomi said. But that can create a problem, too.

"It's a whose-issue-do-you-hear-first question," Morodomi said.

Benicia City Council members have followed a similar practice involving contentious agenda items and, like their Oakland counterparts, also have conflicts over such moves.

By Greg Moberly