Brown Act: March 2007 Archives

I've known Rich McKee for a few years now, and I still don't quite understand why he so zealously advocates the ideals of open-government.
He is a Pasadena City College chemistry professor, served as president of the California First Amendment Coalition and recently resigned from Californians Aware. For nearly 20 years, I think, he has challenged local municipalities and public agencies to follow the Ralph M. Brown Act and the Public Records Act. This includes filing lawsuits that he almost always won, forcing them to follow the law.
As part of our attempt to get more community voices in our paper, Rich, a La Verne resident, has become a columnist of late. It gives him a chance to spread the word about local open-government issues, and gives us unique opportunity to educate the public.
It's an experiment because Rich has to stay a chronicler and stay away from being a newsmaker. The transition so far has been smooth. But he becomes outraged quickly when he thinks someone has disregarded open-government laws, so it should be fun. Here's his latest column.