Post-newspaper watchdoggery! Here in OC!

Remember the name “Terry Francke”? He is general counsel for California Aware. He’s a 1st Amendment advocate and an expert on the “Ralph M. Brown Act,” California’s open meetings law.

So, over the years, he’s opined about the many Brown Act renegades of Orange County, including our own SOCCCD Board (especially during the late 1990s).

Well, now, he’s Voice of OC’s “open government consultant.”

I think that’s great!

On Wednesday, VOC posted a piece by Francke:

Controlling City Hall in the Post-Newspaper Era

It's often said that you "can't fight City Hall." Francke notes that “People win struggles with city halls literally – and government institutions generally – all the time through lawsuits, ballot initiatives, recalls, or state or federal legislation….”

Monitoring government:

But the reactive approach, he writes, means that the smart approach—“monitoring government decisions as they develop, gathering facts showing government performance”–“has broken down.”

OK, there's good news and there's bad news.

The bad news? “This cluster of watchdog functions has for two centuries been the defining civic role of newspapers. But newspapers are not what they used to be, and will never be again.”

The good news? “[T]he power of the Internet that has done so much to erode the exclusive news and information channel of newspapers has also made the watchdog functions noted above far more available to anyone with a connection to the Web. ¶ Many of the most central local government agencies maintain websites, for example, where they post their public meeting agendas in advance and minutes afterward. Some … link their posted agendas and minutes to reports and other documents that will be or have been considered at a meeting, and even provide streaming video of current and past meetings. … [T]he movement forward under both state and federal legislation is to post certain accountability-related documents on the internet routinely and proactively.”

Naturally, the Voice of OC will perform a “watchdog” function. But that's not all! VOC and Californians Aware are “partnering”:

…Voice of OC is going one step farther by performing a watchdog function no commercial media have even attempted: steadily educating its community about the transparency rights of individuals under the law and how, for example, to understand and use the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act with effectiveness and confidence.

Wunderbar!

Francke closes with the Brown Act’s preamble:

"The people insist on remaining informed so that they may

retain control over the instruments they have created."

You betcha!