Continuing its unwarranted attacks on Los Angeles City employees, the Daily News published the names, civil service classes, annual salaries, and overtime pay for the last year for all Los Angeles city employees. The information was obtained from the City Controller under the California Public Records Act. Under California law, police officers and fire fighters are exempt from disclosure under that statute.

EAA immediately inquired of its legal counsel regarding the legality of this disclosure. Unfortunately, case law exists that places this information in the public domain. This is familiar territory for the Daily News as it previously published the same information about employees of the DWP as justification for its arguments against hikes in water and power rates. IBEW challenged this disclosure but unfortunately the Daily News prevailed.

While legal, the publication of the names is to be deplored for its potential impact on the private lives of each of the 48,000 employees whose names are published. Any citizen with a computer can access the MOUs of all bargaining units and discover the salary ranges for each civil service classification. However, the names of individuals are not accessible through the City website. Publication of the actual names is a form of questionable journalism for which the Daily News is infamous. We do not expect its bashing of City workers to end any time soon.