Guess what she’s doing now???

Well it looks like she’s in the running for a City Manager position. Don’t worry, its not here in the Bay Area. It’s for Cape Coral. I just hope they realize what they might actually be getting. Hopefully they don’t have a crime problem and hopefully they have conflict-of-interest safeguards to ensure that if any of her family are hired, they actually “work” for their money. Here’s some local coverage.

California State Senator Leland Yee has been investigating whether CSU Stanislaus and CSU Stanislaus Foundation are evading the CPRA by their refusal to produce the public records regarding the decision to invite and pay for Sarah Palin’s speaking engagement.

Reporter Sam Stanton of The Sacramento Bee sought to obtain the records of CDCR and their Inspector General’s office under the California Public Records Act.

The State of California’s response = DENIED. So The Bee and others filed a Petition for Writ of Mandate to force that the public records be produced. I wrote to The Bee’s attorney Karl Olson asking for a statement several weeks ago. Here’s what he had to say:

“What happened in this case was very disturbing. The Inspector General’s report concluded that there were systemic problems in the oversight of Mr. Garrido. There were missed opportunities to discover the victims. The CDCR is a public agency and the taxpayers of the state of California pay a lot of money to CDCR to keep us safe. If CDCR is not doing its job properly that’s a matter of utmost public interest, and the public needs access to public records to see for itself what happened.”

Rather than just posting all the documents up here for you to read, I’m actually going to “teach” you something. The case Sacramento Bee v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is filed in Sacramento County Superior Court. It is case number 2009-80000390. Head over to https://services.saccourt.com/publicdms2/DefaultDMS.aspx and enter in the case number. From there you’ll be able to read the actual legal documents on file.

If you’re interested in following the criminal case People v. Phillip and Nancy Garrido filed in El Dorado County Superior Court you can head over to http://garrido.eldoradocourt.org/documents.html and read the legal documents as well.

Don’t forget to check out the coverage on The Sacramento Bee.

Friend, un-friend, Follow, un-follow. Is the U.S. Government using social-networking to conduct surveillance of you? According to an article on Cnet entitled “EFF sues feds for info on social-network surveillance” the government is spying on its own citizens.

The EFF’s Press Release states:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), working with the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Samuelson Clinic), filed suit today against a half-dozen government agencies for refusing to disclose their policies for using social networking sites for investigations, data-collection, and surveillance.

To learn more read their press release.

CASE INFORMATION

Electronic Frontier Foundation v. DOD, CIA, DHS, DOJ, et al. U.S. District Court, Northern District of California

Complaint

From CalAware:

“SB 786 will ensure that laws designed to ensure free speech are not used to silence those who seek access to government proceedings and documents,” said Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), the bill’s author. “SB 786 will not only protect the right of individuals to enforce open government laws without fear of a significant financial burden, but will also ensure that government entities act with greater transparency.”

In 1992, the California Legislature enacted the original anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) law for individuals to obtain an early judicial ruling and termination of a SLAPP suit arising out of one’s exercising of speech and petition rights in connection with a public issue. Prior to the law, big corporations and developers – in attempt to silence an individual who was exercising their free speech or petition rights – would often masquerade false defamation cases as ordinary lawsuits. Such cases resulted in severe economic hardships against innocent individuals.

In 2007, Californians Aware (CalAware) – a nonprofit organization dedicated to public forum rights – filed an action for declaratory relief (not damages) against a school district, alleging violations of the Brown Act, the CPRA and the First Amendment.

“We challenged the board of trustee majority’s censure of one of its members for his open session criticism of board action and staff performance, and the superintendent’s editing of those remarks out of the video recording distributed for cable TV replay,” wrote CalAware General Counsel Terry Francke, in a letter supporting the bill. “Our belief at the time was (and still is) that the public has a right to hear even the harshest criticism by an elected member of a government body as to how the body has dealt with any issue—even a personnel matter—on which it has acted.”

The trial court dismissed CalAware’s action upon the district’s anti-SLAPP motion (Californians Aware et al. v. Orange Unified School District, No. G038499). As a consequence, the nonprofit organization was held liable to pay the district’s attorney’s fees and costs for trial totaling more than $80,000.

“The anti-SLAPP law was designed to protect freedom of speech and petition; not to chill an individual’s right to participation and ability to access public documents,” said Yee, who has authored several bills calling for greater public access and government transparency.

“The use of the anti-SLAPP law by government agencies, though, has subverted the very speech and petition rights the law is intended to protect,” said Tom Newton, General Counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA). “The threat that a Brown Act plaintiff could become saddled with the public agency’s attorney fees whenever the court determines the plaintiff is unable to establish a probability of prevailing on the claim has created a profound chilling impact on the willingness of citizens to pursue their rights under the law.”

So we welcome the new law with open arms and closed pocket-books.

The City of Oakland sees it differently. According to SFGate:

The mayor dismissed Edgerly in July 2008 after instances of possible nepotism involving her surfaced, including the allegation that she had tipped her nephew, who also worked for the city, of an impending gang raid.

In May 2008, the suit says, Cynthia Dellums asked Edgerly to come up with city money to pay the couple’s $1,600 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bill.

Edgerly also claims that City Attorney John Russo balked at her request that he pay the city back $4,200 in paycheck advances.

Russo said Tuesday, “I don’t remember it that way at all. I was the one who offered the repayments when Edgerly said there was no problem.”

You might remember that Edgerly is alleged to have alerted her nephew to an undercover raid by Oakland Police on the notorious Acorn gang.

Several stories from SFGate will illustrate the very interesting chain of events.

INTERESTING TIDBIT: Deborah Edgerly hired Doron Weinberg, a very well known criminal defense attorney, early on in the probe against her. Weinberg recently represented Phil Spector (currently in prison, intake photo), Bernie Ward (currently in prison, previous postings), William Ayers, child psychiatrist currently on trial for allegedly molesting children (likely going to prison). His record seems to be comparable to Geragos.

Some public records of new state Attorney General Jerry Brown’s eight years as Oakland mayor are missing and others were apparently improperly destroyed, raising questions about whether the state’s top law-enforcement official has violated California’s public records law.

The San Francisco Peninsula Press Club mentions an even more disturbing notion. Is this the guy we really want to run California again? He did “wonders” for Oakland. Vexatious Requesters…

Attorney General Jerry Brown is sponsoring a bill, AB520 (text and legislative history) that would let government agencies and local governments file petitions to have people declared “vexatious requestors” of public records.

An agency or local government would have to allege that the requestor was seeking records for an “improper purpose.” What’s an improper purpose? “Harassment of a public agency or its employees.” No further explanation is given.

If a judge agrees, then the agency can stop responding to public records from the “vexatious requestor.”

Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter, D-Rialto, introduced the bill on behalf of Brown.

What about providing a guarantee fee award and sanctions for agencies that don’t comply with the initial request? Why must citizens fight so hard to get what we’re entitled to? If we can be deemed Vexatious Requestors, I want a bill that allows them to be deemed Serial Violators.

Original story by CNPA. CalAware has posted this letter in opposition.