Web sites blocked for city workers
Message boards, including Times-Herald's, off limits
Vallejo Times Herald: 08/27/2008 07:58:46 AM PDT
Internet sites delving into Vallejo's political underbelly are not alone in being restricted from Vallejo city employee computers, officials said Tuesday, a day after the Times-Herald's Web site was off limits.
By Tuesday, employees' access to the news portion of the Times-Herald was restored. Blocked, however, were the sub-layer message boards in which reader comments are posted.
On Monday, on-duty city employees were unable to see the Times-Herald Web site at the direction of City Manager Joseph Tanner, who said he was trying to discourage employee's online political commentary on city time.
City officials said Tuesday that thousands of sites are blocked simply as a result of falling under generally banned categories - like adult content, hate crime and computer crime tutorial sites - set by the city's Internet provider.
Three individual sites were blocked by city employees this week, specifically due to their political content and high usage, city officials said.
Gonzalo Gonzalez, who runs the city's Internet technology department, said "people jumped the gun" Monday, because work on blocking the newspaper site was ongoing throughout the day.
Gonzalez said that in addition to the Times-Herald message boards, the private locally run Web sites Vallejo Independent Bulletin at www.ibvallejo.com and Vallejo Bankruptcy Update at www.vallejobankruptcyupdate.com, have also been blocked entirely.
"Currently, they are blocked and there no plans to change that - as of today they are blocked," Gonzalez said.
Vallejo Independent Bulletin (VIB) editor Marc Garman said he is supportive of enforcement of city policy, as long as it is applied fairly.
"I think it's especially, let's be honest with the political situation, it would be especially unfair, where (the Times-Herald and VIB) both are local and we both have politics, it would be unfair if (Tanner) blocked one and not the other," Garman said.
Garman was later told by a reporter that his site had been blocked completely, along with the Vallejo Bankruptcy Update. Garman said the two sites, which provide differing sources of information and perspective, should be accessible to city employees.
"For whatever it's worth, the Vallejo Bankruptcy Update, there's no reason for them to be blocked either," Garman said.
Jon Riley, a Vallejo fire captain and vice president of the local International Association of Firefighters, said he was part of the city employee coalition putting Vallejo Bankruptcy Update together. Riley said people should question the sites' ban if they were chosen specifically, rather than categorically.
Finance Director Rob Stout, who is Gonzalez's direct supervisor, said generally that Vallejo's computer use policy is designed to be less restrictive than higher governmental agencies, allowing for some "ad-minimus" personal computer use.
