Claremont v. Claremont

The Inland Daily Bulletin has an article online concerning the Great Claremont Salary Leak. Reporter Will Bigham does a nice job rounding up comment. We urge you to read the whole piece, but can't resist some excerpts:

The pay stub contains private information that the city would not be required to release upon request, said City Attorney Sonia Carvalho, putting the city in a position to be sued by any staff member whose privacy was compromised. [look for the lawsuit soon: Claremont v. Claremont.]

[City Manager Jeff] Parker said late Friday that he plans to investigate how the information was leaked and said he had contacted Police Chief Paul Cooper about the possibility that the document had been stolen.

Carvalho said Friday afternoon that she had contacted the legal department at Google, which hosts the Claremont Insider blog, to request that the private information in the post be removed.

Sonia must have been busy yesterday. She really got her knickers in a knot and went tattling to teacher. But so far the Google Gods have permitted our modest effort to live on in cyber-space.

"I'm not happy because I don't think it's information that should be on any kind of Web site, or a blog in this case," [Parker] added.

Don't shoot the messenger. Matt Hawkesworth is the one keeping the records in the on-line City Document Archive, not us.

"However it got into the hands of the blog, there was a theft involved, and that concerns me greatly," Parker said. "I'm going to look into starting an investigation into the potential theft of that information." [Will they be getting Columbo, or Inspector Clouseau?]

Parker would not comment when asked whether he would consider legal action against the city if it's determined that a city staff member was the source of the leak.

Maybe the lawsuit will be Parker v. Parker.

(The Insider got brief mention today on the Foothill Cities blog. The link is worth your while because it raises the point, once more, that there is a real public interest in disclosing public employee compensation.)