Our View: Sensitive data to be handled with discretion

To our readers:

My first inclination was to headline this letter, "Much ado about nothing."

The newspaper has made California Public Records Act requests to Sutter and Yuba counties and the cities of Marysville and Yuba City for the names, titles and salaries of current county and city employees. This information is a matter of public record; the California Supreme Court ruled as such in August 2007.

Our intention behind the request: Build a public salaries database for the Appeal-Democrat Web site, which already offers a variety of popular databases of valuable information. Our most recent database on the "Info Center" at www.appeal-democrat.com details students' test scores.

Why a salaries database? Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent. And while some of the salary information already is available, for example, on Sutter and Yuba counties' Web sites, our goal is to make it easier for the public to access the information they have the right, by law, to possess. Essentially, we want the A-D database to provide a one-stop resource.

In last week's letter from the editor, I wrote that no final determination had yet been made concerning the publication of names; we were in the information-gathering stage and would make an informed decision about how to present this public information. That message was repeated to everyone who contacted the newspaper or me directly — including county officials — as well as on the letter's online comments thread.

Unfortunately, that message wasn't embraced by some, resulting in a firestorm that could have been avoided had people trusted that the newspaper would exercise proper judgment and use discretion. But irresponsible parties chose to ignore the facts and instead fuel speculation damaging to both the employees and the newspaper.

Our decision: While we intend to continue to pursue the public information available to us under the law, the planned salaries database will not include the names of rank-and-file county and city employees. Publishing these names is not critical to our overall goal. At some point we may consider publishing the names of the top-wage earners, but that will be a future decision to be made.

For the record, had we chosen to print the employees' names, we would have honored the requests of those who sought to have their names excluded from the database for legitimate safety or security reasons.

We do not believe a database that includes names would provide information that could lead to identity theft; the salaries database will not include data such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses or e-mail addresses. But perception is reality, and we respect the opinions of those public employees and officials who expressed their safety concerns to us.

Frankly, we are extremely disappointed in those who jumped to the conclusion that the newspaper was headed down the path of doing-it-just-because-we-can journalism, with a deliberate attempt to "out" employees in a way that might cause them embarrassment or harm.

A letter from the Yuba County Employees Association distributed to employees was headlined "Appeal Democrat seeks to abuse your privacy." Nothing could be further from the truth.

The letter also included threats against the newspaper, including "those who choose to act irresponsibly will pay a price."

We don't take kindly to threats, especially when we're working on behalf of the public to present information they have a right to know. The planned public salaries database is one more effort by this newspaper to provide readers with information affecting their lives. That is one of our missions.

Let me be clear: The names, titles and salaries of all public employees are disclosable public records. Under law, the newspaper is entitled to these records. We will continue seeking this information, and we will publish it in a responsible manner.

— Len La Barth