| IN THE NEWS |
| WatchOurCity.com Receives Prestigious Beacon Award by the California First Amendment Coalition October 13, 2004 By WatchOurCity.com Berkeley, Ca - WatchOurCity.com was the recipient of the prestigious 2004 Beacon Award issued by the California First Amendment Coalition at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Five other recipients were honored as well "for their outstanding efforts to provide the public access to critical information": Sacramento Bee reporter Denny Walsh, two San Diego Councilmembers, the Santa Clara County District Attorney George Kennedy, the Contra Costa Times and The Oakland Tribune. "Beacon awards are given to individuals or organizations that have done exemplary work in informing the public, often by fighting to keep government meetings or records open to the public and by supporting the First Amendment", stated the official press release. "The California First Amendment Coalition was formed 16 years ago to protect the First Amendment and the public's right to know and its access to public agencies." The citation for the award stated: Watchourcity.com: "The city of Huntington Park in southern California is not unlike hundreds of small jurisdictions in the state. Living in the shadows of Big Cities, none of them have any TV news coverage, or radio news coverage, and few if any have newspaper coverage. So stuff happens. Especially, as in the case of Huntington Park, most of the 62,000 people living there are migrants from Mexico and Central America. First generation workers don’t have a lot of time to trot down to city hall for meetings and records searching. In Huntington Park someone is trying to do something about that situation. A website called WATCHOURCITY. COM has been established to give easy access to public records, to tell what is happening in city government and to point out the greedy foibles that happen when people with power are not watched. WATCHOURCITY.COM started in March. It has noted that one councilman spent double his travel budget two years in a row, that the council hired a city attorney in closed session without bids, and that the council spent $50,000 help an influential business group put on a celebration but cut preschool programs. Indeed, first the site started monitoring travel and cell-phone spending, and expanded to include campaign contributions and contracts, all posted for anyone to pull down and see. WATCHOURCITY.COM seems to have combined the new technology with old fashioned dig-it-up reporting. And it does so with heavy dependence on public records. It must be hitting home. One former council member who provided some guidance on getting public records recently received a letter from the city attorney accusing her of obtaining city records evidently by illicit conspiratorial means. The council member said her only conspiracy was with the city clerk who followed the requirements of the California Public Records Act. There is another thing about WATCHOURCITY that is unusual. The man behind the idea and the execution insists on remaining anonymous, and he promises anonymity to those who tip him on to malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance. “We receive a lot of whistle-blower e-mail,” he was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying. “Everybody fears reprisal—everybody. Anonymity is paramount.” So even his Mother doesn’t know what he does. Oh, he’ll tell you what he is not. He is not a journalist. He is not a technophile. He is not a city employee. He is not a native American. But he will describe his principles. He says: “WATCHOURCITY.COM’S goal is to foster open and transparent municipal administration operations and elections in Huntington Park which can be closely examined by all residents. Transparency and accountability in public administration are enhanced by strong public scrutiny based on solid legal provisions for access to information.” |
| See what the L.A. Times said about WatchOurCity. com |