Los Gatos Patch Celebrates Sunshine Week

Join Los Gatos Patch for Sunshine Week 2012 as we celebrate, converse, comment, debate and educate our town about the importance of open government and the public’s right to know what government is doing and why.

We're running a poll asking you to rate our town's openness to public access. If you give the town an average or poor vote, please tell us why. A simple sentence will suffice.

We'll also be sharing accessible online and tech resources on how to use local, state and federal sunshine and freedom of information laws, telling you what kinds of public records are available and how to get, use and decipher them, and explain how and why journalists use them to further one of our core missions of informing our communities well.

This year Sunshine Week is co-sponsored by ASNE and the Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press and many other media industry partners, including Patch.

The goal is to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in government transparency. The week is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami, along with the ASNE Foundation, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and others.  

In Los Gatos there are key laws that govern access to public records and public meetings. Here are a few of the best:

In California there are two acts that provide open access to public meetings, The Brown Act and The Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act. We also have the California Public Records Act that gives citizens access to all kinds of public information that is useful to communities.

Los Gatos Town Manager Greg Larson said the town adheres to The Brown Act, which ensures access to town records, including Los Gatos Town Council agendas, staff reports, financial documents and other substantive items, which are available on the town's website by clicking here.

The appropriate town staff member assigned to each item of interest or project can provide limited assistance to the extent that it does not interfere or conflict with the delivery of other ongoing public services, Larson said. All requests for public records should be director to the town clerk, he added.

Los Gatos also has several operating standards and practices to encourage public access and transparency, Larson indicated. For example, the town's policy on posting notices on the property for development projects is one of them and also the story poles posting notice was also adopted by the town and not imposed by the state, he said.

To mark Sunshine Week 2012, we urge citizens and civic organizations across the country to again press state and local officials to find meaningful ways to participate in Sunshine Week to demonstrate that they, too, are committed to true transparency in government.  

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