Dear Editor and Laguna Community,
I’m surprised by the City Manager’s and Police Chief’s decision to limit our local press’s access to police emergency dispatch because it requires “too much staff time.” This claim suggests that document search criteria, which can be programmed by computer, were never implemented by police staff.
Aren’t we giving our police staff the computer tools they need to work? The press has been provided with full emergency dispatch police records (sans protected personal information) since 2004, as the late Stu Saffer, past Indy editor-in-chief and founder of StusNews, told me when I moved here. Eighteen years of practice suddenly eliminated from public press access?
Let’s get our police staff the tools they need to provide this important information to our newspapers. Or, perhaps, some of our wonderful resident volunteers can help with this weekly task if the City can’t supply the police department with these resources.
Transparency and a free press are fundamental to a democracy.
Deborah Laughton, Laguna Beach
