The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "California Public Records Act" ...
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"Urban League Gets Mixed Grades On Crenshaw Area Overhaul"
This series attempts to provide a "midway progress report" for a major, $25 million effort by the Los Angeles Urban League to "address academic problems at Crenshaw High School," and several other "social ills" that bother the neighborhood that surrounds the campus. Reporters interviewed members of the community, school and local law enforcement in an effort to report on the progress of the program. They found the Urban League's Neighborhoods@Work program "met some goals and fell short of others."
Tags: Los Angeles Urban League; Crenshaw High; LAPD; L.A. Unified School District; L.A. City Attorney's Office; California Public Records Act; records request
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2010 Public Salaries
Using the California Public Records Act, the Bay Area News compiled a database with the salary information of nearly one million public employees.
Tags: salary; public employee; pay; government worker; public records
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"Grading the Teachers"
The LA Times studied schools throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District. Using gain-score analysis, data linking standardized test scores and various evaluation techniques, the Times identified the "most and least effective" teachers and schools in the district. Reporters examined schools ranked high by the API standard, only to find inconsistencies in student performance.
Tags: California Standards Test; API; Los Angeles Unified School District; LAUSD; RAND; California Public Records Act; United Teachers L.A.
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The Chancey Bailey Project investigation
"In 2008, The Oakland Tribune and The Chauncey Bailey Project began to shift from investigating the organization believe responsible for the killing to how the Oakland Police investigated the case." Their work revealed failure for the police to document key evidence of conspiracy, a delay in police action to raid Your Black Muslim Bakery during which time Bailey was murdered.
Tags: Chauncey Bailey; Your Black Muslim Bakery; murder; court documents; conspiracy; FOIA; California Public Records Act; Oakland; Alameda County; police investigation
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I Lit the Fire: Jared Petrovich Admits His Role in the Killing of John Chamberlain. But why did he target the gay?
These four articles probed the culture of violence at tTheo Lacy Men's Jail in Orange, CA, beginning with an exclusive interview of Jared Petrovich, the accuse ringleader of the Oct. 5, 2006 murder of John Chamberlain, an inmate suspected of child molestation who was brutally beated inside the jail. That story included combined interviews with Petrovich and other inmates and guards at the facility with transcripts and notes of interviews with inmates and guards that the reporter obtained from lawyers representing inmates, including Petrovich, who were charged in the attack. The article contained allegations that Deputy Kevin Taylor, a prison guard who was never charged in the crime, told Petrovich that Chamberlain was a child molester, and that Taylor routinely use inmates like Petrovich to enforce prison rules and mete out punishment to various inmates. Petrovich provided an example of this behavior that I did not include in my original story, alleging that Taylor had known about--and approved--a previous beating of an inmate in Sept. 2006. He only knew the inmate's first name--Mark--but claimed the inmate had been a guitarist for the rock band Kiss. He claimed another inmate, nicknamed "Sick Dog" had witnessed Taylor being informed of the planned attack and, after it was carried out, rewarding the inmates with sack lunches. Through a California Public Records Act request, the reporter obtained the Sheriff Department's jail file on the beaten inmate, Mark Leslie Norton, aka Mark St. John of the rock band Kiss, and found information which corroborated Petrovich's account of the incident, and obtained his death certificate. St. John died of a brain hemorrhage several months after being released.
Tags: prison beatings; rock band Kiss; California; prisoner brutality; bribe; prison regulation
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Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
San Francisco Chronicle reporters broke the story that some elite athletes used drugs to "run faster, hit harder, and cash in on the fame that comes only to those at the very top of their games." Fainaru-Wada and Williams used"Federal Grand Jury transcripts and federal investigative reports... court records and state health department records," among other documents. (332 pages)
Tags: steroids; drugs; BALCO; Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative; San Francisco Chronicle; Victor Conte; Major League Baseball; football; track and field; California Public Records Act; Federal Grand Jury; sports agents; trainers; sports doping; Olympics; Justice Department; IRS; U.S. Anti-Doping Agency; USADA
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Guardians for Profit
The reporters investigated California's broken system for protecting incapacitated adults. Roughly 500 professional conservators operate in California, entrusted to take care of at least 4,600 of the state's most vulnerable adults. They hold sweeping power, controlling their wards' property and money as well as the smallest details of their lives. A system meant to protect the elderly often fails them.
Tags: elderly; elder care; conservators; power of attorney; California Public Records Act; disabled
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Deadly Consequences
This series investigates an explosion at an excavation site in the Northern California suburb of Walnut Creek that killed five workers. It was known that a high-pressure petroleum line was in the immediate area, but the reporters used public records and extensive reporting to find out how it was ruptured.
Tags: Freedom of Information; FOIA; worker safety; California Public Records Act; OSHA; construction; gas
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Broke and Abandoned
An investigation into claims that the California Department of Corporations ignored years of warnings about fraudulent practices, including allegations of securities fraud and grand theft, committed by D.W. Heath & Associates.
Tags: fraud; D.W.Heath & Associates; Department of Corporations; Riverside County; California Public Records Act
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Secret No More
In April 2004, an assistant principal, Vincent Brothers, was charged with killing five of his family members. He had a prior record of violence and sexual misconduct. This reporter from the Bakersfield Californian, acting on a tip about Brothers prior record, asked the school board to release his personnel file. This story describes the legal battle for the release of these documents under the California Public Records Act.
Tags: FOIA; Vincent Brothers; California Public Records Act; Public Records Act; school board; school principal; sexual abuse; violence; legal battle; assistant principal; vice-principal