PLACERVILLE . INFO

By Stan Oklobdzija - Ever wonder how much money your mayor got from developers? Want to know how much your city councilman spent on his last election bid? Want to find out this information without having to supply personal information about yourself?

Well, tough luck if you live in some communities.

Seven out of 13 city halls and county election offices around the region failed a Bee test of a state law that guarantees public access to financial disclosure forms for elected officials.

However, after The Bee notified several cities that had failed, officials changed their procedures to comply with the law.

The law states that these forms must be available during business hours and that the person must not be asked to identify his or herself when requesting them. If copies are requested, they must be made immediately and for no more than 10 cents a page, the law says.

In the test, a Bee reporter walked into the office where the law mandates the documents must be held, and without identifying his or herself, asked to see the financial disclosure forms for a period in 2007. The reporter then asked for copies to be made.

The cities of Roseville, Folsom, Placerville, Rocklin and Galt failed in meeting all or parts of the law's requirements. ...

An employee at the Placerville City Clerk's Office told the reporter the forms were available at the El Dorado County Elections Office, but a clerk there sent the reporter back to the city offices.

"Of all the records that you can imagine that local governments might have … this is the one that should be most freely available," said Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit organization that advocates for open government and First Amendment rights.

"The legal obligation to have them readily available is clear, the demand to see them is fairly high and there is no real excuse not to have them readily available," he said.

Enacted in 1974, the Political Reform Act set new standards in how and when elected officials must disclose how much money they received and from whom they received it.

Designed to combat influence peddling and corruption, the act mandated timely filing of a financial interest statement known as Form 460.

The act spells out in detail how that information must be made available to the public.

"The idea is to prevent political gamesmanship with these important public documents," said Roman Porter, spokesman for the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state agency that regulates campaign donations and political disclosure. "(By law) no conditions can be applied to inhibit or slow down the ability for a citizen to access them."

Some cities objected to their low ratings. ...

Placerville City Clerk Susan Zito said all financial disclosure forms are kept in her desk and are available for review at all times.

"As a one-person City Clerk's Office, I don't have a staff that is familiar with specific city clerk documents," she said in an e-mail. "I have spoken to the Administration Department's archive technician … and I have instructed her on how to respond to future requests." ...

In El Dorado County, a county employee asked the reporter if he was with the press before making the documents available.

Bill Schultz, El Dorado County recorder-clerk, said the question didn't mean that his employees treated the general public any differently and was probably just the result of his clerk trying to be friendly. "It's just the way she does things," he said.

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