Assemblyman Jose Solorio learned politics while serving on the City Council of the only city in Orange County that does not have a public information officer, Santa Ana. Here he learned how to run a closed government, which is what Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream and Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido prefer. Apparently Solorio has taken this philosophy with him to Sacramento as he has now written an inane measure, A.B. 1978, which will continue the Santa Ana tradition of shutting the people out, and overcharging us in the process.
Orange Punch summed it A.B. 1978 this way, “Assemblyman Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana, is a carrying a bill at the urging of the county of Orange that would exempt computer mapping systems from the public records act, so that counties could sell information to vendors but not need to release it to members of the public for the nominal fee allowed under the public information laws.”
Being able to generate maps for free on the Internet is immensely useful. I do this almost daily. Granted, many people are now buying GPS software so they can do this without using computers, but the mapping data probably comes from the government. Solorio is now trying to fix it so governments will be able to charge us for data we already paid for, via our taxes.
The funny part, if there is one, is that Solorio’s bill just plain sucks. From the Register: “It’s a very badly written bill,” said Bruce Joffe of Oakland, who has worked with computer maps for 30 years and has led several computer mapping organizations. “If the idea was to clear up some ambiguities and inconsistencies of the California Public Records Act, this just makes the mess worse,” he said.”
Solorio reacted to questions from a Register reporter with this boneheaded quote, “I don’t want it to mean less people will get public data from the county.” But that is EXACTLY what A.B. 1978 will accomplish.
Thank God that many good people are opposing Solorio’s latest gaffe. In fact, according to Orange Punch, the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) has announced it is opposing Solorio’s bill. Here are some of the comments made in a letter from this association to Solorio:
CNPA submits AB 1978 would price most members of the public right out of the market. Moreover, while we claim no technical expertise on GIS systems, we note that technological developments continue to expand rather than restrict the ability of information to flow freely format-to-format and system-to-system. Your bill appears to set up artificial barriers to the public
This tells me that he’s in cahoots with some of these information vendors. Why else would you sponsor such a bill?
Jose Solorio sounds like your typical Latino politician who espouses a third world mentality. He only thinks of how he can enrich himself instead of considering the greater good. And of course, these types tend to only see the short term gain instead of the long terms costs and ramifications.
Shame on Jose Solorio. All that education at UC Irvine and Harvard produced this??!! (I’m also a UCI alum, and have seen how he likes to make a big deal out of his education).
Solorio’s hat is too small. Or perhaps his head is too big.