Informed California Foundation DBA - Open Vallejo

Investigative Reporting in the Public InterestOpen Vallejo published groundbreaking, original stories in 2025 that generated major impact in Vallejo, across California, and nationally.Open Vallejo broke a major national story when it was the sole newsroom to report from the scene of 82-year-old Curtis Linds homicide in Vallejo in January 2025. The newsroom soon connected Linds killing to a group of bright young people who authorities allege are connected to half a dozen homicides around the country. Open Vallejo repeatedly scooped far larger and better-resourced outlets, and was featured in a major national program.In May 2025, Open Vallejo published I cant breathe: video shows death Vallejo police concealed for years, a major new investigation and accompanying video revealing body camera footage and chilling new details about the 2016 death of Darryl Dean Mefferd in Vallejo police custody. The investigation, distinct from the newsrooms original 2024 report, was made possible by Open Vallejos public records litigation and ongoing reporting, which convinced four outside law enforcement agencies to release their records even as the city of Vallejo refused. The investigation won the June 2025 Sidney Award, among other honors. After Mefferds family filed a civil rights lawsuit, a federal judge subsequently ruled that Vallejo could not invoke a statute of limitations defense due to allegations that officials actively concealed Mefferds death, and cited Open Vallejos reporting for bringing the incident to light.Open Vallejo reported from the scene of an August 29, 2025 police shooting in which two young Vallejo officers shot a 24-year-old man amid an apparent mental health crisis. The newsrooms ongoing reporting began when reporters filed public records requests before the crime scene tape came down. We then exclusively obtained and published more than an hour of footage officials fought to keep secret, and revealed that two police oversight officials posted online comments that experts said threatened the integrity of the investigation. Open Vallejo also obtained records showing the mayor expressed grave concerns over those comments to the police chief and city manager, who ignored her. The day after the story ran, one of the officials who commented resigned.Open Vallejo investigated the prosecution of Jos Carrizales, a formerly homeless activist facing a dozen charges including six counts of Disturbing the Peace by Offensive Language for criticizing police at encampment sweeps. The newsroom obtained body camera footage and incident reports from six incidents, analyzed a decade of criminal charging data across all nine Bay Area counties, and consulted leading First Amendment experts who concluded the charges raised serious constitutional concerns.Open Vallejo reported on former Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams testimony that he was threatened and harassed out of the job, shedding new light on an incident the newsroom first reported in 2022.Open Vallejo also published a practical public service guide helping Vallejo residents locate free groceries when federal food assistance programs were suspended, correcting outdated information on government and nonprofit websites.Public Records Requests and LitigationOpen Vallejo filed numerous public records requests in 2025, prompting the release of a large number of public records. The newsroom continued enforcement litigation against the city of Vallejo to compel disclosure of public records related to police shootings and serious uses of force, even after a prior ruling in the newsrooms favor. The litigation continued to generate new public record releases. Open Vallejo also continued its prosecution of a separate public records lawsuit against the Solano County District Attorney and Sheriff for police accountability records, which similarly resulted in the disclosure of records that had remained out of public view for years.Freedom of the PressOpen Vallejos reporting first revealed to the public that Vallejo police officers bent the points of their star-shaped badges to mark each person they killed, prompting the ACLU of Northern California to sue the city for attempting to keep its own investigation into the practice under wraps. Open Vallejo filed two amicus briefs in the case. In June 2025, the California Court of Appeal ruled in favor of transparency, setting important statewide precedent for public access to government investigations.Open Vallejo continued as a founding client of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Presss Protecting Journalists Pro Bono Program, including through the public records litigation referenced above.Open Vallejos reporting helped persuade the California State Bar to open a confidential inquiry into the Vallejo City Attorneys Office, reflecting the broader accountability impact of the newsrooms investigative work.Transparency Infrastructure and Public ResourcesOpen Vallejo continued building the Vallejo Peoples Archive, a free, searchable public resource of digitized local historical records. In 2025, the archive grew to more than one million digitized, OCRd pages of historical newsprint spanning the mid-1800s through much of the 20th century. The archive, which Open Vallejo has made available to the public, serves reporters, researchers, and community members.Open Vallejo began developing a real-time police scanner monitoring system that uses technology to alert reporters to significant incidents referenced in police radio traffic. The tool is designed for scalability and replication by other newsrooms.