Reporter Thomas Peele writes that Bay Area News Group’s “dreamy goal” is to eventually post salary data from every government entity in the state, while acknowledging that its ContraCostaTimes.com/salaries databases are still working on the Bay Area. One big pocket of resistance: Oakland. An excerpt:
We don't even have complete data from the East Bay's biggest city, Oakland, even though in late March, Mayor Jean Quan promised our editorial board the data would be forthcoming. The same is true for the Oakland Unified School District, which has yet to release full 2010 compensation data despite an assurance from district spokesman Troy Flint more than a month ago that it would be provided. That data, like the city's, was first requested more than six months ago.
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Perhaps it is regional snobbery or simply because the Bay Area has such a rich culture of civic activism that we expect local governments to unflinchingly follow public records laws and be completely transparent.
Yet in Oakland, my colleague Daniel Willis and I can't even get e-mails returned about unfulfilled requests.
