City College’s Lack of Transparency: A Training Ground for Journalists

In a school that’s full of tensions from faculty salary concessions during a surplus year, to no heat in classrooms, a journalist doesn’t have to go far to find news-worthy stories.

By Renée Bartlett-Webber rbartle8@mail.ccsf.edu

After only two months of studying journalism at City College, I have discovered that this is likely one of the best places to receive a journalism education. The school has changed drastically over the last few years due to layoffs, mismanagement of budgets, accreditation challenges and more. No heat in classrooms, unintended consequences of layoffs and cuts to classes are just a few stories I have been able to chase down this semester. In addition to unending newsworthy stories, I am faced with the classic obstacles of accessing information, when those in power don’t want you to find it.

Part of journalism is finding the truth through interviews and accessing public information. City College is a public institution that is funded by your tax dollars and therefore has certain legal obligations to provide this information. While it’s easy to find meeting agendas, minutes and approved/rejected action items through BoardDocs, there is substantially more information that the school is required to provide upon request that is almost impossible to access.

request to be fully answered within a maximum of 24 days, but because there is no one person responsible for receiving and fulfilling these requests, it’s hard for us to even make requests. While it is technically required for a public institution to have a custodian of records, the only way to enforce it is through a lawsuit, which is time- and money-consuming.

City College does not seem to be unique among community colleges to lack transparency. In fact, Laney College has started the process of suing their administration for that exact reason.

replaced individual budget meetings for all constituent groups, those of whom did not have a say in the agenda. Of particular interest, Martin refused to meet with the local faculty union, AFT 2121, and the classified union, SEIU 1021. While I do not applaud the obstacles obscuring access to public information, it has certainly provided me with great training that will help me navigate similar challenges in our democracy.

and Sea Hugger’s demonstrations on plasticfree lifestyles alternatives will be available to attendants. At 11am and 1pm City Surf Project will have demonstrations on wetsuit repair. Additionally, there will be a total of 10-12 organizations tabling at The Dairy inside Sports Basement Presidio.

The ticket price for students is $20, $25 for 5k runners and $15 for 1 mile walkers and children.

Zero Waste Fest is an excellent opportunity for City College of San Francisco students and other SF Bay Area residents to experience the future of joy-filled, educational events with the zero waste event model the fest is built on. Students interested in gaining skills to better reduce and reuse will have many ways to garner that knowledge from environmental organizations at the Resource Fair, as well as the experience of the fest itself, and be able to leave knowing some of the control of waste reduction and product reuse is in their hands.

To learn more about Race to Zero Waste or purchase student tickets for Zero Waste Fest, please visit https://racetozerowaste.org/ zerowastefest/.