Recently in Public Records Category

Here. I don't know how useful it is, but it's at least an attempt at open government.

I'm not sure I like this. We were part of this public records audit as a way to show that police departments need to be transparent. While there may be a point where we would have to file a lawsuit for a particular case, a general lawsuit like this sounds counterproductive.

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.

It's always fun trying to get rarely asked for public records. You know city officials are going to say no, because they always do. One of those are resumes. I just asked Irwindale* for their city manager's resume, and they declined citing personnel exemptions. According to Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, that's baloney. And he cites case law. I'll be citing it too when I ask for it again. I'll put up the relevant case law when I find it.

*For some reason I had a brain-lock and put in Monrovia. I haven't (yet?) asked Monrovia for the city manager's resume.

UPDATE: Francke e-mailed the case law. Relevant part - "plaintiffs would obtain information as to the education, training, experience, awards, previous positions and publications of the auditor. Such information is routinely presented in both professional and social settings, is relatively innocuous and implicates no applicable privacy or public policy exemption."

Full decision after jump: