By Matthew Hirsch

The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force will no longer have to battle deputy city attorneys in its quest to open government to public scrutiny, thanks to a policy change by City Attorney Dennis Herrera. Following a Guardian editorial that called attention to the practice (see "Herrera: end secrecy," 08/25/04), Herrera for the first time has directed his staff not to help departments fight to keep public records secret.

From now on, deputy city attorneys will only issue public opinions stating how they advised department heads on how to handle public records requests. The attorneys will no longer represent departments at Sunshine task force hearings, Herrera told us.

"I think this strikes a fair balance between our office's obligation to represent our client, the city, and doing everything our office can to uphold the letter and spirit of the Sunshine Ordinance," Herrera said.

Meanwhile, the task force voted Oct. 26 to send a citizen's seven-month-old complaint against the San Francisco Public Library to ethics officials and the district attorney, a move that's yielded little in the way of enforcement from outside agencies in the past.

The decision stems from a complaint library watchdog Peter Warfield filed Mar. 8 alleging that the library failed to comply with a request for information about repetitive stress-related employee injuries. In April the task force ordered library staff to help Warfield locate documents in their control and to provide a legal basis for withholding any information.

Nobody from the library administration attended the October task force hearing. Instead, acting city librarian Paul Underwood sent a letter reiterating what the library has said all along, that Warfield was given everything he requested except for individual records of employees who've suffered repetitive stress injuries. Those personnel records are exempt from disclosure under state law.

But Warfield told the task force that the library still wasn't fully cooperating and that he could prove it. He said the library submitted reports to the task force he had never seen before, and he identified a workplace safety report filed with the state government that he'd also never seen.

From the beginning, Warfield has been an outspoken critic of the library's plan to install radio frequency identification (RFID), a tracking system the library has said would reduce repetitive stress injuries among library staff. Warfield says RFID would infringe on patrons' privacy.

"I want to verify their unsubstantiated claims about repetitive stress injuries, and they are doing everything in their power to block release of the information," Warfield told us. "The library is not leveling with the public about radio frequency identification."

The task force last referred a citizen complaint to the Ethics Commission two months ago, although no action has been taken to date. In February the task force referred a whistle-blower complaint against top officials in the Ethics Department to the Ethics Commission, the state attorney general, and the Fair Political Practices Commission. No further action was taken following those investigations either.

This points to a basic problem with the Sunshine Ordinance. The task force has no power to enforce the law, and nobody else ever does anything about it.

E-mail Matthew Hirsch at matthew@sfbg.com.