Thursday, January 3, 2013

Ralph M. Brown,
Democrat
The Making of a Landmark Law for Open Government (Voice of OC)

     Sixty years ago Assemblyman Ralph M. Brown of Modesto, acting in part on his own experiences with the secrecy of local government officials, authored California’s landmark open-meeting law to ensure bodies like boards of supervisors and city councils conducted their business in public….

Judge Awards $98,000 Attorney Fees to Irvine Valley Teacher (1998, LA Times)

     Months after ruling that the trustees of South Orange County Community College District acted illegally by making decisions in secret, an Orange County judge awarded $98,000 in attorney fees this week to a professor who filed a lawsuit against the district.
     Roy Bauer, a philosophy professor at Irvine Valley College, has sued the district twice for violating the state's Brown Act, which requires that public meeting be open. The suits stemmed from a series of decisions the trustees made in 1997, including the reorganization of the district's governance structure and the selection of Raghu P. Mathur as president of Irvine Valley College. The campus is one of two that make up the South Orange County Community College District; the other is Saddleback College.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...