Tuesday, February 16, 2016

SOTF: DA Gascon Broke FOIA Law, Fails to Enforce Sunshine

Ambitious political animal George Gascon is very selective about which laws he'll follow and enforce as the district attorney of San Francisco. 




Regarding open govt statutes, he was found numerous times in violation of access to public records by the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force for failure to maintain and release a daily work calendar. 

In July 2015, the task force unanimously voted to find him guilty of noncompliance with City law. Quite telling of Gascon's attitude towards transparency and accountability to the citizens of San Francisco.


Gascon is supposed to not only follow sunshine laws but also enforce them and on that front, he's an abysmal failure, as documented in the most recent annual report from the task force which stated:

"The District Attorney's office has failed to respond to any referral for enforcement from the Task Force, including a failure to provide any explanation to the Task Force or the underlying complainant. Enforcement of the [Sunshine] ordinance is essential to protecting the public's right to open government."

Pretty strong words and condemnation from the sunshine panel. Gascon doesn't follow the sunshine law, won't enforce findings of the SOTF and gives them and the public no answers about why he flagrantly ignores access to govt documents statutes.

Gascon blowing off sunshine laws as not applying to him and his office, and ignoring SOTF calls for enforcement against violators, is a blot of shame on the district attorney and his staff.

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