Two prominent bills centered on local government transparency were chartered this week when Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 272 and AB 169. Both pieces of legislation tackle the issue of public records and how and what data is legally required to be shared.
SB 272, authored by State Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, and co-authored by Assemblymember Brian Maienschein, R-San Diego, requires cities, counties, schools and special districts — with the exception of “critical agency control and infrastructure systems” — to create a catalog of any software or computer system that collects, stores or exchanges information.
Under this expansive legislation, each local agency must annually update these catalogs every July and disclose information about vendors, the system’s purpose, primary site caretakers, and information about data collection.
“The goal for SB 272 is to better harness the power of locally generated data to help spur economic growth, tackle major infrastructure issues and engage millions of Californians in their communities,” Hertzberg said in an Oct. 11 statement. “Properly gathered and clearly understood, data could also help empower local agencies and encourage the agencies to work together more effectively and to intelligently allocate resources to better deliver public services.”
Supporters of SB 272 include the Sunlight Foundation, ACLU and other trade and industry groups.
The Urban City Caucus and Rural County Representatives of California stated concerns with SB 272, saying that many of their “modern county software applications are connected to the Internet to provide online services to residents and therefore could be vulnerable to malicious hacking,” and cited that a requirement to provide the name of the vendor and the product version was written in without a clear public benefit.
The other bill, AB 169, builds upon the California Public Records Act by setting forth a definition of open data and requiring that local agencies must maintain an “Internet resource” that is retrievable, downloadable and searchable through commonly used online search applications, and moreover, made free to the public with restriction.
Maienschein, who authored the bill, said in an Assembly analysis that “key information maintained by local governments, from business licenses to council agendas and budgets, are frequently kept in file formats that make them difficult to find or analyze using contemporary internet tools and other technology. It will streamline communication between government agencies, both state and local, and vastly improve accessibility for the public.”
Unlike SB 272, AB 169 had no opponents on file; it was signed on Oct. 10.
The Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to achieve government transparency through technology, supported both SB 272 and AB 169. Emily Shaw, deputy policy director for the foundation, said the organization is very excited the two bills were signed and believes both of them will increase availability of open data across California. San Francisco and Los Angeles are “national leaders in terms of the information they’ve made available,” but Shaw said requiring open data had been difficult until now without statewide, coordinating legislation.
Shaw said “AB 169 provides a common definition [of public records] and strengthens the requirements to make it available.”
