COUNTY GETS MIXED GRADES ON PUBLIC INFORMATION ACCESS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

A year after Los Angeles County supervisors ordered steps to offer the public more information about local government, a watchdog group gave the county a mixed review and blasted the County Counsel's Office for its secrecy.

The Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition released a report card Tuesday, giving an ``F'' to County Counsel Lloyd W. Pellman because of complaints that his office denied numerous public records requests and a ``D'' to the Board of Supervisors and its Executive Office for a lack of clarity on how to access information on the county Web site and for not enacting a ``whistle-blower'' policy.

Pellman had no comment.

The supervisors adopted the policy for more openness in 2002 after they came under fire for secretly voting to kill a ballot initiative that was aimed at raising the pay of home-care workers.

The coalition gave the Board of Supervisors an ``A-minus'' for its actions, an ``A-minus'' for opening meetings of supervisors' deputies, and an ``A'' for county Public Information Officer Judy Hammond acting as an ombudsman to coordinate new open-government initiatives.

``The Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition is very pleased with how well the board responded to criticism that county government was so arrogant it acted as if its mission was self-protection and self-perpetuation rather than serving the public,'' said Karen Ocamb, chairwoman of the coalition, which is made up of the Los Angeles Press Club, the Society for Professional Journalists, the First Amendment Coalition and other groups.

In her report, Ocamb noted that the supervisors have not codified last year's open government initiatives into county ordinances - which would prevent county supervisors from reversing the measures in the future - and have refused to pass the coalition's Sunshine Ordinance, which would force the county to discipline employees who do not comply with public record and open meeting laws.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who introduced a series of motions last year opening up county government, said the county has moved a giant step in terms of access, but that the efforts are a work in progress.

``I'd like to codify all of these reforms we made into ordinance form so it's not just a policy, but a law,'' Yaroslavsky said.

Ocamb said many county departments have started placing reports to the supervisors and other documents on the county's central Web site at lacounty.info/, but it's difficult for the public to know how to obtain the records under the obscure ``Public Info'' pull-down menu.