First Documenters assignment uncovers Brown Act violation

Community-powered journalism is the key to a thriving democracy and empowering community members to hold local government accountable.

That’s why we at inewsource started a program called the San Diego Documenters. This was inspired by our siblings in Chicago who started this groundbreaking program back in 2016. We provide free public training for community members to report on public meetings, and we pay them and offer transportation so they can attend.Through our partnership with San Diego State University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies, we will cover more than 40 public meetings over the next 2 months.

The very first meeting our Documenters covered illustrates the importance of showing up.

The Documenter was assigned to attend the Policy and Funding Committee for the Commission for Arts and Culture at the City of San Diego last Friday. There was no agenda, meeting link, or notice of the meeting’s status on the agency’s website, even though the state’s open meetings law, the Brown Act, requires notice at least 72 hours in advance.

We reached out to the Committee, which claimed to have added to the website that the meeting was canceled. Luckily, with technology, we can verify that claim.

As of 4:36 p.m. the night before the morning meeting, no updates had been made, as seen in the featured image above.

You might say not updating the website isn’t a big deal, but we have to take these issues seriously because, at one point in this state, open government meetings weren’t a guarantee for the public. Officials would sometimes meet in secret, meaning every day San Diegans were kept in the dark when it came to the operations of their local government.

Any Brown Act violation, no matter the subject matter, puts at risk our ability to access information about the decisions that impact our various communities. This is not good for our democracy or our community. And without a Documenter showing up and finding out, you wouldn’t have even known.

Interested in becoming a Documenter? Join us today and sign up for our weekly Documenters Dispatch newsletter!