A days-long web outage for California\u2019s Fair Political Practices Commission is causing consternation for users and ripple effects for the agency.<\/p>\n
The website and email outage, which began on April 10, comes weeks before the state\u2019s primary election, on June 2. The FPPC is an invaluable resource for candidates and citizens, providing guidance on campaign rules, mandated financial disclosures, and a complaint portal, among other resources.<\/p>\n
Former Assemblymember Mike Gatto, currently a partner at the law and consulting firm Actium LLC, ran into an issue with the site Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe FPPC is staffed by very hard-working people. But the outage has made it hard for a client of mine to file his major donor form,\u201d he said in a text message.<\/p>\n
Several others wishing to use the site expressed frustration on Facebook and X about not having access and being directed to send email, when email was not working.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon, the FPPC canceled its April meeting, citing concerns about public access.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the interest of preserving meaningful opportunities for public participation and comment, the April 16th Commission Hearing has been cancelled,\u201d read a message posted to the agency\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>. \u201cThis decision is intended to ensure that all interested parties have adequate time and access to engage once services are fully restored.\u201d<\/p>\n All the items scheduled for the agency\u2019s April meeting<\/a> will be scheduled for its May 14 meeting instead.<\/p>\n A communication from the agency posted to X<\/a> provides the clearest explanation for the outage, reading: \u201cBecause of issues related to the fiber optic network that connects to the FPPC\u2019s infrastructure several services that the FPPC provides\u201d have been unavailable since April 10.<\/p>\n FPPC spokeswoman Shery Yang said via text message that the FPPC\u2019s website<\/a> is available as of Wednesday but that \u201csome services, including email, remain limited while the provider works to resolve the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis was part of a broader service interruption and was not isolated to the FPPC,\u201d she wrote. She did not elaborate on which other California agencies had experienced an outage.<\/p>\n Databases where users can search certain campaign finance filings from candidates remained offline Wednesday.<\/p>\n