We almost lost it — our right to our own public records and participation in public meetings.
Last year the state government’s leaders thought it was too expensive a right and proposed dumping it. The year before that, the legislature suspended the requirements of open meetings law. We now have Prop. 42 on the ballot.
It would put into the state Constitution that the public has a right to the records of our cities, our county, our water agencies, all of our tax-supported institutions. And to know in a meaningful way what’s going to happen at public agency meetings. The open meetings law, called the Brown Act, dates to 1953, and the public records act to 1968.
