This week we’re talking about how the recent shootings in Atlanta and their aftermath fit a historic pattern of anti-Asian racism and how the national trend ripples to Humboldt. We’ve also got the Foilies, the annual roundup of outrageous incidents of redaction and refusal of public records. And we’re following up on the Eureka Police […]
Public Records
Posted inNews
The Foilies 2019: Recognizing the Year’s Worst in Government Transparency
The cause of government transparency finally broke through to the popular zeitgeist this year. It wasn’t an investigative journalism exposé or a civil rights lawsuit that did it, but a light-hearted sitcom about a Taiwanese American family set in Orlando, Florida, in the late 1990s. In a January episode of ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat, […]
Posted inNews
‘Long Overdue’
In late 2013, Eureka City Councilmember Lance Madsen was dying, in the last stages of his battle with lung disease. But the former police detective was also pressing to close one last case — to get his fellow councilmembers the information he believed they needed to fire City Attorney Cyndy Day-Wilson. In an investigative report […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Little Sunshine in Congress, State Legislature
“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist they may retain control […]
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Recognizing the Year’s Worst in Government Transparency
Government transparency laws like the Freedom of Information Act exist to enforce the public’s right to inspect records so we can all figure out what the heck is being done in our name and with our tax dollars. But when a public agency ignores, breaks or twists the law, your recourse varies by jurisdiction. In […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Stop Passing Notes!
Dean Glaser hit the nail on the head. It was back in April and the Fortuna city councilman was responding to a Journal California Public Records Act request seeking all emails and text messages sent and received by him and his cohorts during a pair of council meetings. “I never had my phone used at […]
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Merry Christmas: Here are the Center Arts Riders from the Last Two Seasons
In this week’s cover story, we read through nearly 100 contracts between Center Arts, which brings big-name music, dance and theater acts every year, and the performers who grace HSU stages. Those contracts contain the riders — documents that detail an artist’s technical and “hospitality” needs, in other words the food, drinks and comforts they […]
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Journal Files Response in Police Dash Cam Case
The North Coast Journal filed a reply Monday to the city of Eureka’s appeal of a Humboldt County judge’s order to release video footage of a police officer arresting a juvenile in 2012. In its reply brief, the Journal argues the city has provided the California First District Court of Appeals with no evidence supporting […]
Posted inNews
Court *Might* Start Charging for Records and Other Services
Be prepared to pony up for court records. When the Journal went into the court records office last week, an employee warned, somewhat admonishingly, that asking for a criminal case file without a case number would cost $15 in the future. “That’s new,” we thought. For years, court records employees have seemed happy to look […]