Karen Ocamb Beacon Award Citation

Karen Ocamb's unending commitment to government transparency has been an inspiration to LA Press Club members and others throughout Los Angeles government. Karen has organized the effort to get a Sunshine ordinance passed in Los Angeles, and has has personally testified before the LA County Board of Supervisors in support of the ordinance.

Her energy, enthusiam and leadership has been contagious to everyone involved. Many late-night strategy sessions and Karen's perseverance have kept the Sunshine Ordinance issue alive.

Karen Ocamb is an award-winning journalist with 27 years of experience. A veteran of CBS Network News, she has produced numerous video projects and events, and been editor and contributor to several gay and mainstream publications, including GayWired.com, where she pioneered multimedia news coverage online. She is a member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.

Here's Karen's written history of the sunshine ordinance:

The Sunshine Coalition is an ad hoc open government group made up of the L.A. Press Club, the California First Amendment Coalition, the Society of Professional Journalists/LA, California Common Cause, the Black Journalists Association of South California, the Asian American Journalists Association/LA, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association/LA, and numerous individual journalists and open government advocates. Originally launched two years ago by the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC), the effort to advocate for more accountability under the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act (CPRA) group attracted a number of L.A. Press Club journalists, including Press Club president Mary Moore, Jill Stewart, Charles Rappleye, and attorney (and California Common Cause board member) Roy Ulrich. CFAC president Rich McKee had written a local Sunshine Act and was taking it to small cities around Southern California for adoption. The original group debated whether to push the Sunshine Act at a grassroots level, eventually bringing it to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors (BOS), or to advocate for a ballot initiative similar to the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance. As group members became involved with other matters, not the least of which was work, Ulrich and CFAC Board member and attorney Barbara Blinderman continued to modify the Sunshine Act. The group was "jump-started" on Dec. 9, 2001 by LAPC Board members Karen Ocamb and Ana Garcia and the reconstituted group approved the 8th draft of the "model" Sunshine Act, with the understanding that the co-authors would tweak the Ordinance in response to constructive criticism. As the new Sunshine Committee co-chairs, Ocamb and Garcia brought a motion to the Press Club Board asking for support for the Act. The Board voted 8-1 to endorse the Act, with the understanding that if a government body watered the Act down until it was unacceptable, the Board would withdraw its approval. Armed with the Press Club's endorsement, Ocamb, Garcia and Blinderman approached other journalism and civic groups for their endorsement, building the L.A. Sunshine Coalition in the process. Additionally, in January the LAPC Sunshine Committee also asked the Board to approve the principals embodied in the California "Sunshine" Constitutional Amendment (SCA7) introduced by state Sen. John Burton with hopes that it will be placed on the November ballot. At a Sunshine Coalition meeting in February, members became aware of a newly approved motion passed by the BOS that eliminated all tape recordings and minutes taken of closed door discussions that did not lead to action by the BOS. Ocamb and Garcia invited CFAC's McKee to the LAPC Board meeting to explain what the BOS vote entailed. Ironically, the following day, on Feb. 19, the Supervisor Yvonne Braithwaite Burke was presenting a commendation to the Press Club for its 50 years of service to the community. Attended by Ocamb and LAPC Board VP Jim Foy, Ocamb read a letter from newly installed president Patt Morrison expressing "concern" for the BOS action. When the Los Angeles Times ran an expose on Friday, March 8 entitled"Board Secretly Urged Killing Ballot Item" by Evelyn Larrubia, the Sunshine Coalition was ready to spring into action with press-generating testimony before the BOS and subsequent meetings with BOS deputies about the BOS problems and the Sunshine Act. On April 2, after an unprecedented public hearing during which the Sunshine Coalition played a key role, the BOS voted unanimously to pass several motions that opened up and made government more accountable. Additionally they order an outside law firm to analyze the Sunshine Act and other proposals. While the action taken by the BOS was declared a "good first step" by the Sunshine Coalition, there is much work that still needs to be done. Additionally, the Sunshine Coalition is now working on efforts to bring the Sunshine Act and open government education to city government and the LA Unified School District.