Officials withhold ticket contract information

Elise Young of northjersey.com reports that state officials refuse to provide complete public contracts with Ticketmaster. According to the article, the “arrangements give the state millions of dollars from seat sales and the non-refundable ‘convenience’ fees and other charges to fans.” In contracts obtained by The Record, the state’s take in transaction fees was removed.

Following a disturbing pattern of child deaths, Brad Branan of The Fresno Bee investigated the Fresno County Child Protective Services.   "Among California's 20 biggest counties, Fresno County is one of the worst when it comes to meeting standards for child protection, The Bee found in an analysis of state data. The county's Child Protective Services office is less likely to conduct timely investigations, and less likely to make required social work visits to children in the system. Fresno County is also far less likely to confirm allegations of mistreatment." Under a new California law, all child welfare files are made public for a child who dies from alleged abuse or neglect.

A Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) investigation into filing practices in Monroe County state courts revealed that documents critical to the outcome of countless civil lawsuits have never been made public because they were never filed with the court as required by state rules. The investigation prompted the New York State Office of Court Administration to pledge to issue a new directive to ensure compliance. The OCA claims it will issue the directive to all administrative judges across the state outside of New York City this week in response to the newspaper's report.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Todd Holcomb used Georgia's public records law to compare recruiting budgets for college football programs.  "It has become big business for big-time athletics programs. Each year, they spend more than $500,000 on recruiting, but they make more than $50 million in annual athletic revenue, mostly from football." The story shows the range, for example, between Valdosta State, a nationally ranked Division II program with a recruiting budget of $12,566, compared to Georgia Tech's $55,000 tab for football recruiting envelopes and stationery alone.

Nina Bernstein of The New York Times reports that, despite the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's January 2004 statement that its officers would focus their efforts on detaining illegal immigrants with criminal records, the agency changed its quotas to facilitate the capture of non-criminal illegal immigrants as well. By 2006, only 9 percent of those detained by the ICE were fugitives with criminal records, compared to the 40 percent who were nonfugitives picked up by chance. Bernstein obtained the information from a professor and students at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law who filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit for ICE's internal directives.

An investigation by The San Diego Union-Tribune has found that Elite Racing, a marathon promotion company, has received subsidies from the city of San Diego. According to the article, "The subsidies stem from a nonprofit charity that San Diego-based Elite Racing created that co-hosts the event. It allows the company to cash in on a city policy to charge nonprofits only about half the cost of police services used at special events." Throughout the past 11 years, Elite Racing has received more than $400,000 in subsidies.

Less than a week after Washington state's Bank of Clark County failed, The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) used public records and inside sources to uncover the decisions that sent this financial institution into what one insider called the bank's "death spiral." Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. documents, Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council documents and county land records bolster an explanation of what set this bank apart from its healthier peers.

Voice of San Diego reporter Will Carless reports that the county of San Diego has kept secret the results of an investigation into a report of improprieties in a program that provides wheelchairs and other medical services to children with physical disabilities. The investigation lasted more than a year and led to disciplinary action and changes in ethics policies, but county officials refuse to release the report the investigators produced. But other county documents obtained by Voice of San Diego shed some light on the case.

Mark Pittman of Bloomberg.com reports that the Federal Reserve has refused their request to "disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral." Bloomberg filed suit against the Federal Reserve System in November for the release of bailout documents.

"State senators may be violating a Texas Constitution ban on using taxpayer money for bonuses to government workers by approving temporary end-of-year raises to give staffers thousands of dollars in extra pay," reported Matt Stiles of the Houston Chronicle.  An analysis of a state payroll database obtained through the Texas Public Information Act showed a pattern of temporary salary inflation at the end of the fiscal year in many Senate offices.  The bonuses totaled more than $650,000 in the past two years.