Richard McKee, Open Government Maven

Rich McKee, who co-founded Californians Aware, died unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago. Many of us will miss him. His daughter Kelly helps us out with public records things, and she helped me force the Special Ed Director's resume out of Chino Valley Unified School District - which showed that that spedhead had about as much background in special education as I do in the fashion industry. This little victory prompted a determined but unsuccessful campaign of retaliation, which faded away with the dismissal of the Human Resources guy who helped coordinate it, as well as her transfer elsewhere in the district. Chino Valley has a long way to go, but I think they've come quite a way. Through his daughter, I'm in debt to Rich for this, indirectly. There are probably lots of cases like this that nobody knows, besides Rich's publicly known succeses.

A tough defeat for Rich was being beaten in an action against the Orange Unified School District in 2009 and being made to pay $80,000 in legal fees. But this, too, ended in an important success. The anti-SLAPP law was amended to forbid the award of fees to winning government defendants unless the action is frivolous.

Don't forget. You don't always lose just because you lose.