Crisis mode should not change the basic rules of government transparency.

First Carmel City Council held a closed-session meeting on March 30 to discuss what appeared on a public agenda as a “threat to public services.” Then the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, in a special meeting March 31, also decamped to a closed session in which one agenda item was listed as conferring with counsel “regarding matters posing a threat to the security of public buildings, essential public services or the public’s right of access to public services or facilities.”

On March 12, Gov. Gavin Newsom, by executive order, suspended requirements of the Brown Act and Bagley-Keene Act – California’s open meeting laws that state, generally, the public’s business should be conducted in a public fashion – by authorizing state and local government bodies to hold meetings by phone or electronically. And given Newsom’s order that the whole state should shelter-in-place and that only essential services should continue, that makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense: That public agencies seem to be using Newsom’s order and the HIPAA law as an excuse to go on an information lockdown.

When it comes to their refusal to give information right now, public agencies are running wild. Make noise about it as a journalist, and you’re told (this week alone) that you’re endangering the public and inciting panic or that you’re whiny and entitled.

On March 24, the Weekly broke the story that nine Salinas Police officers and five civilian employees of SPD had been ordered to self-isolate because an employee of the department had been diagnosed with Covid-19. I got those numbers from a source with knowledge of the situation who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to media. Both Californian reporter Kate Cimini and I wanted to know if those numbers had changed and if more employees had been asked to self-isolate. I received an email from Chief Adele Fresé stating: “I’m not going to release numbers of employees. I’ve read up on recent publications regarding employee rights and employer responsibilities under HIPAA related to Covid-19. What I’ve gleaned is the burden is on the employer to not disclose information that is not necessary.”

For a story about a confirmed case of Covid-19 in an employee of Salinas Valley State Prison, Salinas-based freelance journalist Eduardo Cuevas asked basic questions: the nature of the person’s job, how their movements throughout the prison had been tracked and ramifications to others of potential exposure. The California Department of Corrections told him to go pound sand. When he put the request in writing, it took the CDCR all of two minutes to deny it.

“It’s not unreasonable to ask how government is responding to this crisis,” Cuevas says. “Shouldn’t we have an understanding of what’s going on?”

In Carmel, City Council went into closed session to discuss a “threat to public services.” That threat, it turns out, is to the city’s bottom line: With so many hotels and businesses closed right now, tax revenue to the city has plummeted and, Mayor Dave Potter tells me, the city might have to consider layoffs because of it.

Closed-session meetings are normally reserved for a few things: property negotiations, litigation, personnel matters. Budget prospects are none of those.

It’s an improper use of closed session, says First Amendment Coalition Executive Director David Snyder. The “threat to public services” exemption is meant for things like a potential threats to public buildings or public utilities, so an agency’s plan on how to protect things remains private.

When the Monterey County Health Department announced its intention to release data on the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases only weekly, rather than daily, local media outlets banded together, demanded more transparency, and the department came around to daily updates which it now posts online. People are hungry for information; accurate information minimizes panic.

There are, every day, seemingly fewer journalists asking questions of public agencies, and perhaps that’s why public agencies think they can get away with not providing answers. But if asking questions they’d rather not answer makes me whiny and entitled, go ahead and color me whiny and entitled.

MARY DUAN writes Local Spin for Monterey County Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com. Staff Writer Pam Marino contributed to this report.