Senate Republicans say Newsom must go. Democrats rally behind the embattled Governor

 Senate Republicans: 1 year later Newsom’s ‘one-man rule’ cripples California’s economy – Lake County Record-Bee (record-bee.com)

Gov. Gavin Newsom (courtesy CALMatters)

Sunshine Week reminds us Democracy depends on access to public records

 This is Sunshine Week and it seemed like a good time as any to revive my journalism blog. If you never heard of it, Sunshine Week celebrates accountability in a Democratic Society.

As the L.A. Times noted in their recent editorial,(follow link below) the event was launched in 2005 by the American Society of News Editors, now known as the News Leaders Association. 

Sunshine week: Keep pressure on government to be open, accountable - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

Unfortunately, even during the pandemic, governments have delayed access to public records, as documented by this report by the Associated Press' David Lieb:

As states prepared to reopen their economies following coronavirus shutdowns last spring, The Associated Press asked governors across the U.S. for records that could shed light on how businesses and health officials influenced their decisions.

Nine months later, after several more COVID-19 surges and shutdowns, the AP still has not received records from about 20 states. Some outright denied the requests or sought payments the AP declined to make. Others have not responded, or said they still need more time.

Public records have become harder to get since the world was upended by the pandemic a year ago. Governors, legislatures and local officials have suspended or ignored laws setting deadlines to respond to records requests. They cited obstacles for staffers who are working at home or are overwhelmed with crisis management.

The result is that information that once took a few days or weeks to obtain now often takes months — depriving the public of timely facts about decisions their leaders are making.

“The pandemic rages on, but investigative journalism doesn’t halt. The public’s right to know doesn’t cease to exist,” said Gunita Singh, a legal fellow at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which has tracked nationwide delays in responding to public records requests.

“Having these unnecessary measures in place that hinder open government sets a terrible precedent,” Singh said.

U.S. states and local governments are far from alone in their deferrals and delays. Dozens of countries suspended or altered their right-to-information policies last year while citing the pandemic, according to a joint tracking effort by the Centre for Law and Democracy and Access Info Europe.

Open-government advocates have started to worry about potential long-lasting effects.

The pandemic could “give cover for emergency measures to come into force that could then over time become permanent,” said Joe Powell, deputy CEO of the Open Government Partnership, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that works with governments in 78 countries, including the U.S., to promote transparency and public participation.

Even before the pandemic, some government agencies routinely blew past their own deadlines for responding to public records requests. But the number of such cases has grown over the past year, according to AP interviews with government watchdog groups.

New data indicates there has been both a higher demand for government information during the pandemic and longer waits to obtain it.

State, county and city governments experienced a sixfold increase in their time spent on public records requests last year, rising from an average of 346 hours in the first quarter to 2,121 hours by the last quarter, according to an analysis by GovQA, a company that provides cloud-based software to manage public records requests.

That surge was driven by both the volume and complexity of requests. After shutdowns led to a dip in records requests accepted by government agencies from April to June, the number of such requests shot up by 23% over the rest of the year, according to the GovQA data.

Processing delays were exacerbated by remote work, outdated public-records laws, underfunded budgets and increased oversight from top administrators wanting to review potentially sensitive data before it was released, said GovQA spokesperson Jen Snyder.

The AP last May sought copies of communications about the coronavirus between governors’ offices, state health directors and groups representing businesses, health care providers and local governments. By August, the AP had received records from about one-third of the states, revealing that some governors had allowed businesses to help write the reopening rules affecting their own industries.

The AP still has requests pending in Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, New York and Texas. Illinois this past week finally provided 74 pages of documents, heavily redacted.

After months of repeated AP inquiries, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s office on March 3 released just two documents from last spring — one from a hospital association proposing criteria for resuming elective procedures, the other from a mayor’s group about guidelines for opening swimming pools and camps. A spokesperson for the Republican governor apologized for the delay, citing “human error” for a breakdown of staff communication.

Delaware Gov. John Carney was one of several chief executives who initially suspended the state’s response deadline for public records requests during the coronavirus emergency. With no end to the pandemic in sight, the Democratic governor reversed course and lifted the suspension in September.

But Carney’s administration did not fulfill the AP’s request until Feb. 10, when it provided 109 pages of documents and a note that more could come later. Though most were merely press clippings, the records included emails from representatives of car dealers, home builders and other industries seeking to keep operating during a shutdown.

More than a half-dozen states — Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Washington — continue to suspend some open-records requirements through gubernatorial orders, according to an AP review of public-records policies.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige, a Democrat, took the most sweeping action when he suspended the state’s entire open-records law in March 2020. Ige eased the suspension under pressure from open-government advocates. But his most recent order, issued in February, still allows deadlines to be suspended if hard copies of documents are inaccessible, staff are backlogged with other requests or a response would pull agency employees away from other COVID-19 work.

Some state legislatures also relaxed response deadlines for records requests during the pandemic.

The Missouri House in February overwhelmingly passed legislation that would suspend response requirements whenever governmental bodies are closed for extended periods. That bill is now in the Senate.

By contrast, Pennsylvania lawmakers pushed for quicker responses. After the state’s open-records office advised that days when public offices are closed don’t count toward response deadlines, the Republican-led Legislature passed a law prohibiting Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration from ignoring or suspending records requests during disaster emergencies.

Some local governments also have rolled back records law suspensions.

Last April, Virginia’s Albemarle County, which surrounds Charlottesville, extended indefinitely the deadlines to respond to records requests. The county board later softened that stance before finally repealing the extension in November — a move that came shortly after state Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, said state law does not allow local governments to modify such deadlines.

Albemarle County spokesperson Emily Kilroy said the timing of the repeal was merely coincidental.

“The ordinance was not intended to get out of the responsibilities that we have under the Freedom of Information Act,” she said. “It was really in response to the pandemic.”

The Dallas Independent School District suspended all records requests for seven months while its employees were working from home with laptop computers. Staff likely could have processed some requests for electronic records. But because the legal team was unable to access other records stored in offices, it chose not to process any requests “in order for everyone to be on the same playing field,” district spokesperson Robyn Harris said.

When staff returned to in-person work on Oct. 7, the school district had a backlog of 424 records requests, she said.

Among those was a July 7 request from Keri Mitchell, executive director of the Dallas Free Press, seeking information about internet hot spots provided for students’ families during the previous school year. By the time she finally received the information, Mitchell had moved on to other news stories.

“If we can’t get timely responses to open-records requests, we can’t get people actual answers,” she said. “It just creates another barrier to the information people need to literally survive.”

___

Follow David A. Lieb at: http://twitter.com/DavidALieb

Halfway through COVID year 2020

Here we are more than halfway through COVID year 2020. I always meant to revive my journalism blog but a certain pandemic we are all familiar with now derailed everybody's timing and plans. Still working on my novel but at a very slow rate, was hoping to have that brushed off by end of calendar year 2020 which is also the year in which I turn the big 5-0 but the best laid plans as they say....

I think today the most rewarding aspect of the workday was talking to one of our subscribers who wrote a long letter saying she wanted to cancel her subscription which had been paid for a year in advance due to the same usual complaints. Not enough local coverage of local news and events, the newspaper leans too much to one ideology or another.

I did call her back, if not only to get her correct address so I can grant her wish to cancel her subscription but to point out that print newspapers have been in a steep decline, but not as a result of a bias of any kind per se, but many factors converging against the print industry: The rise of technology and the internet and social media, state laws that would like to compel the newspaper industry into making delivery drivers full time employees at a time when it may be impossible to fiscally do that. 

Also COVID 19's impact on our industry is as severe as many other local businesses. The ones in Lake County which have not shuttered their doors permanently are struggling to survive, trying to adapt to this changing economic landscape. It is not my place to tell you who to vote for in the upcoming 2020 election in less than 100 days, but the incumbent of course is making his case and the challenger is attacking what he believes to be an ineffective record. 

I don't have a crystal ball to predict outcomes, but I can tell you that I have a mechanism (as do you if you are on social media) to look back. A year ago to the day I was undergoing the seventh day of evacuations due to one of the big fires we have had here in Lake County, though I personally have only experienced a couple. As a resident and as a reporter, newspaper man, I am greatly concerned as is everyone else about fire preparedness, fire mitigation and response and planning. 

The Civil Grand Jury in their 2019-20 report brought up a valid point, one I am not sure our county or state leaders have fully addressed: What happens when or if a major disaster like the fire in Paradise hits our county? With COVID-19 still stalking us, this has the potential to be a catastrophic event.  I mean, it's not really possible to practice social distance in a crowded shelter. Where will people go? Can most residents even survive? Highway 29 for example is a major thoroughfare. But it could also be a death trap if there is no egress out of Buckingham, Soda Bay and the Clearlake Rivieras. I have experienced traffic delays and sitting still when there is a rollover accident like we had a few days ago, or during the crews cutting down the vegetation and trees on the side of the road. Can you imagine what would happen if there was a major fire and everyone took to the road trying to get out alive? 

These are some of the things and concerns that, on the eve of my 50th year on this Earth, keep me up at night.   

Thanks to Betsy Cawn, KPFZ programmer and the Essential Public Information Center in Upper Lake for this list of disaster preparedness resources. 

August 5, 2020 - Lake County Disaster Preparedness: Orgs/Agencies/Projects (D3) 

1. Lake County Disaster Council: Formed in 1996, Ordinance No. 2342. See Lake County Municipal Codes, Chapter 6 - CIVIL DEFENSE: https:// library.municode.com/ca/lake_county/codes/code_of_ordinances? nodeld=COOR_CH6CIDE. 

2. Lake County Office of Emergency Services: http:// www.lakesheriff.com/About/OES.htm. 

Lake County Emergency Operations Plan, Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan: http://www.lakesheriff.com/About/OES/Plans.htm 

3. Lake County Risk Reduction Authority: http:// www.lakecountyca.gov/Government/Boards/RRA.htm. 

4. Lake County Fire Safe Council: http://www.lakecountyca.gov/ Page3801.aspx. Lake County Community Wildfire Protection Plan: http:// www.lakecountyca.gov/Government/Boards/lcfsc/LCCWPP.htm. 

5. South Lake Fire Safe Council: http://southlakefiresafecouncil.org. 

6. California Fire Safe Councils: https://cafiresafecouncil.org/ resources/fire-safe-councils. 

7. Firewise Communities: https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire- causes-and-risks/Wildfire/Firewise-USA. 

8. Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network: https:// fireadaptednetwork.org. 

9. Lake County Community Organizations Active in Disasters (COAD): Website under construction; refer to the Napa Valley COAD for info, http://napavalleycoad.org. 

10. Lake County Resource Conservation District: https:// www.lakercd.org/about-us.html. 

11. Lake County Department of Public Health: http:// health.co.lake.ca.us. 

12. California Department of Public Health: https://www.cdph.ca.gov. 

13. California Emergency Medical Services Authority: https:// emsa.ca.gov/medical-health-operational-area-coordinator. 

14. Lake Transit: www.laketransit.org. 

More of the best columns from 2019

This one was published on the Record-Bee in the anniversary of the deadly Camp Fire in Butte County California. Mandy Feder-Sawyer is a career journalist and an instructor of journalism at California State University, Chico. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com. She is a former editor of the Lake County Record-Bee.

Fire People

One year ago, I became a member of a club I didn’t want to belong to – the fire people.

If this piece of writing seems fragmented, it’s because it is, much like our new lives.

We are perpetually straddling the line of gratitude and terror.

My daughter Nicole’s biggest fear – the house burning down – was amplified by tens of thousands when the Camp Fire struck our town and left us all running for our lives together as a family.

We escaped together as a family and we will stay together as a family.

A year later we live in a big Victorian house in Red Bluff – all of us – my husband, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren.

Faced with losing her entire family, my daughter Miranda, 26 then and her boyfriend Brad of Sacramento, took care of all six of us. Miranda’s an EMT and signed up for a strike team to come into the fire as we were trying to get out.

Our severed community floated all over the country like the ashes that whipped through the wind on Nov. 8, 2018.

In one fell swoop, we, the people who loved to spread sunshine, were incapable of giving. For months we had to be takers and we had nothing to offer anyone else who was suffering either. This was humbling and painful.

The people who helped us from near and far cried for us and showed us a kind of empathy I had never experienced. Conversely, some folks fell away with the discomfort of our new reality.

We approached everything matter-of-factly. As people shared their sorrow for our circumstances, we smiled and said we were OK. We wouldn’t know until much later that we were not in fact, OK.
The civilized life we led until Nov. 7 was turned on its head.

People were jumping into stranger’s vehicles. Nobody was wearing seatbelts because we didn’t know when we might have to leave the car and run. Those who were forced to shelter in place huddled and sobbed hour after devastating hour.

In the wake of the fire we lived in phases. Phase one was simply to have a roof over our heads. Phase two, we needed to get our fire damaged vehicles repaired.

We had an epiphany at the Toyota dealership.

“What’s your address?” The service manager asked. Larry and I looked at each other with blank stares. We explained that we were from Paradise. Tears filled his eyes and poured over his cheeks unabashedly into his goatee. He lost his own home to fire the year before in Santa Rosa.

Our granddaughter Eloise was 4 years old then.

After we checked into the hotel, we headed through the lobby to the elevator. Eloise jumped back away from it pointing wildly at a sign, the one that pictures someone running on stairs away from flames. “Use stairs in case of Fire.”

She thought the elevator was on fire.

We stayed in so many different places we never knew where we were when we woke up. That happens to us still.

Dining out and staying in hotels had lost its luster.

Yes, we are grateful for our lives on the daily. There are other feelings too. Feeling fortunate to be alive when many others did not make it out. Knowing that we suffered one day of running for our lives and people all over the world spend lifetimes doing so. Having family and friends who cared for us and insulated us through the biggest challenges, when many others have no one.

I clung to the routine of going to work. I missed only one day as a result of the fire. My Chico State students who were predominantly freshmen, matured at an alarming pace as a result of the fire. They became serious about journalism. I think in part to make me proud and also to show respect.

One student who was lackadaisical about attending class told me after the fire, “If you can make it to class, so can I.”

Larry did what he does, he wrote a song, “Sifting Ashes,” that chronicled the day. It took seven months to complete.

Nicole grabbed her sewing machine when we left. She made Christmas stockings for everyone in the hotel room while simultaneously caring for a 4-year-old, and a two-month-old.

Our dogs and cats were fostered out to friends and relatives until we could find a more permanent place to call home. One of our cats didn’t survive the fire.

Each second of that day plays back in slow motion like a movie montage. I can still see that wicked looking cloud, hear the roaring of the mighty engine that was the fire, the explosions and feel the ashes falling like hard rain.

It’s true that life does go on and there are many events aside from the fire in which we need to participate, such as weddings, births, and sadly funerals.

Mainly, I want to take the opportunity right now to thank every person who helped us through this. We couldn’t have done it without your grace and kindness. Our appreciation is endless. Each act deserves its own story.

We will not allow this blaze we narrowly escaped from take over our lives.

We will live, laugh and love.

“A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion.” — John Steinbeck

Best columns of 2019

As 2019 is coming to a close I endeavor once again to update my journalism blog. Who knows if I will be successful in posting more in 2020? Well that is one of my goals. I thought I would start by presenting some of my favorite columns printed this past year. Dan Walters is a political columnist we regularly feature in our Lake County Newspaper. This is a column he wrote about Assembly Bill 5 known as the controversial "gig economy" bill. It's a great piece of writing. Enjoy.

Dan Walters. Courtesy of CALMatters

A titanic battle over work looms

It would be difficult to name an issue of more fundamental, far-reaching importance than how we earn our livings — and a titanic political battle is about to erupt.

 This week, a coalition of companies that use on-call drivers with their own vehicles to transport passengers and goods — Uber and Lyft most famously — filed an initiative ballot measure to overturn a new, union-supported law that would compel their workers to become payroll employees.

That law, Assembly Bill 5, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom just a few weeks ago, was easily one of the most controversial of the 2019 legislative session, implementing the state Supreme Court’s Dynamex decision handed down in 2018.

That decision created a three-factor “ABC test” to determine who could be an independent contractor and who must be considered an employee, thus striking at the heart of the business models Uber, Lyft and other companies use.

AB 5 lodged the ABC test into law, while granting exceptions to “licensed insurance agents, certain licensed health care professionals, registered securities broker-dealers or investment advisers, direct sales salespersons, real estate licensees, commercial fishermen, workers providing licensed barber or cosmetology services…”

The gig companies contend that the Dynamex ruling and AB 5 undercut the desires of their drivers for flexibility. They offered to create a hybrid model under which drivers would still set their own hours but with income guarantees, fringe benefits and other aspects of payroll employment.

Unions countered with “wedriveprogress.org,” a coalition of drivers who want to become employees, and argued that the “misclassification” of workers as contractors is rampant, depriving them of rights and benefits protected by state labor laws.

Rebuffed by the Legislature and Newsom, Uber, Lyft and DoorDash, a delivery service for restaurant orders and other consumer items, pledged $30 million each to overturn the new law. Their initiative would embrace the hybrid employment concept they proposed in the Legislature, including minimum income guarantees, health care insurance subsidies and vehicle maintenance stipends.

The sponsors rolled out their measure Tuesday during a Sacramento press conference featuring drivers who like the status quo. One, Jermaine Brown, told reporters he quit a full-time job to drive for Uber and Lyft because he wanted “flexibility to be home with my kids” and called the new proposal “the best of both worlds.”

The California Labor Federation immediately denounced the proposal as “another brazen attempt by some of the richest corporations in California to avoid playing by the same rules as all other law-abiding companies in our state,” and added, “California’s unions will join drivers who want fair wages, better treatment and flexibility to defeat this corporate ploy.”

However, it’s not certain that voters will have the last word because Brandon Castillo, a spokesman for the “Protect Drivers and Services” coalition, made it clear during the news conference that the firms “prefer a legislative path.”

In other words, they would drop the measure, even after spending heavily to qualify it for the November 2020 ballot, if the Legislature and Newsom would agree to a compromise. Otherwise, he said, “we’re going to spend what it takes to win.”

Although the proposal would apply only to drivers using “app-based rideshare and delivery platforms,” its adoption would create a new model that could spread to other industries.

Thus, the stakes, in both human and economic terms, are obviously immense. The “gig worker” model has been growing fast, particularly in California, and the state’s unions, whose membership is declining, are eager to have more payroll workers that they could potentially organize.

California legislators should not endanger newspapers

Source: Chico Enterprise Record, Bay Area Newsgroup An important Editorial on a subject that could have serious repercussions for our industry in our small rural markets.

As written, Assembly Bill 5, the so-called “gig work bill” sponsored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, would have a devastating economic impact on countless California residents and businesses. It would be especially harmful for many (if not most) of our state’s newspapers, especially in smaller communities that rely so heavily on local journalism for their news.

This much is certain: AB5 is going to pass. It’s already sailed through the assembly on a party-line 59-15 vote, and is certain to pass the Democrat-controlled state senate next month. From there, it’ll just be a Gov. Gavin Newsom-signature away from becoming law.

But first, changes can, and must, be made. If not, the result will be economic chaos for many businesses as 2 million independent contractors are transformed overnight from independent contractors to employees.

The bill is based on the California Supreme Court’s Dynamex decision, which means companies must pass an “ABC” test to determine if a person is an independent contractor or not. Specifically, contractors must be free from company control; perform work not central to the company’s business; and, have an independent business in their industry.

In other words, you can pretty much forget about businesses being able to pass that test in a majority of cases. And the economic impact will be devastating.

We all know independent contract workers and we don’t disagree that many are deserving of employee status. But this bill goes too far, taking that decision out of the hands of thousands of contractors who enjoy the freedom offered by non-employee status.

Our industry, already reeling from years of declining ad revenue and skyrocketing production costs, would be among those hardest hit. There’s no other way to say it — this bill, as written, would put many newspapers out of business, with those in smaller communities being especially impacted.

Sharon DiMauro, a retired publisher from Mendocino County, once won a statewide “A newspaper is … ” contest with the words “A newspaper is … the closest anyone will ever get to holding democracy in their hands.” This bill threatens to rip that piece of democracy right out of our grip.

The people who deliver our newspapers are independent contractors. For most, it’s a supplemental source of income. Some are students and many are retired people looking to make a few extra dollars every month. They contract with us for the routes; if they’re unable to fill the routes on a given day, they hire somebody who can.

Delivering the paper is their business, operated on their terms. And many are delivering multiple newspapers on their routes.

The financial impact of those drivers becoming employees would be more than our industry could bear. Opportunities would be lost, eliminating much-needed supplemental income for the drivers who like the freedom of being their own bosses.

Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City), one of the “no” votes on AB5, spared no words in assessing the bill’s overall impact.

“It’s a bad bill. AB5 and the Dynamex decision are poised to completely upturn the way people work in California,” Gallagher said. “The flexibility, efficiency and benefits to workers will be eliminated. This situation allows power brokers in Sacramento to arbitrarily pick winners and losers — and that’s never a good thing. From truckers to franchise owners, many industries will be impacted.”

Fortunately, there’s still time for amendments. The California Newspaper Publishers Association is seeking a newspaper carrier exception, along with an amendment allowing newspapers to continue to use freelancers — the loss of which would have a devastating impact on our ability to report local news and events.

We recognize the need for many independent contractors to earn employee status. As written, this bill casts far too wide of a net and will end up driving too many businesses either out of state or out of operation.

Please join us in contacting your state representatives and party leaders to urge Gonzalez to add the CNPA amendment protecting the right of newspaper drivers and freelancers to work as independent contractors.

Lake County musings

I had intended to update this blog more often in 2018 but as usual time is limited and sometimes the weekend rolls around and all I want to do is lounge around binge watching hulu documentaries or leveling my orc warrior in vanilla.

What a difference a year makes, about this time last summer I was practically putting the bulk of the Willits News out on my own until we hired a reporter but she came in around July and lasted about 4 and a half months on the job.

Now, I have transferred and moved to Lake County to take over the editorial duties at the Record Bee, a daily paper serving Lake County CA. After only a week on the job there has been a grass fire, a meeting with a U.S. Senator and today the Pawnee Fire in Clearlake Oaks has (as of 1 AM Sunday) burned 1,000 acres and 12 structures according to scanner and CAL fire reports. As I drove towards the Moose Lodge in Clearlake Oaks to hopefully speak to some folks and get a handle on the devastation on the area, it dawned on me that I had not even stopped to eat dinner (it was around 7:45 pm) and I would probably not have something to eat until I got back from the assignment about an hour or two later because I needed to get there before it got too dark, only aided by the fact that Thursday was the Solstice, meaning the days only get extra long from here on.

I was eerily reminded of the Mendocino Complex Fire and how it took Willits by surprise with city officials admitting that they were ill prepared because the city's emergency plan had not been updated since 2008. We did not have internet for several days until temporary service was established. I won't soon forget the sight of hundreds of residents flocking to the local library because even though it was not open after hours, due to their network being the only one operational during the emergency, most of the town gathered outside where they could get a signal and send out messages to loved ones, family members and friends.

I also thought about the conversation I had yesterday with Senator McGuire who represents the 2nd District. Among other topics we spoke about the fact fire recovery in California will be an on going, expensive long process and even though there is money from the General Fund to cover some of the damage from last year's fires, I hope that this fire season does not take to great a toll on the remaining reserves from the rainy day fund government has been working on to deal with emergencies like the ones we had today. I guess we will soon find out.