San Diego’s elected officials are being asked to approve a ballot measure proposal submitted by the public about the public’s right to know, and the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists hopes they do.

We believe public access to information is a crucial element of journalism and a free society, and we wanted to share our letter to San Diego City Council members with you. A council committee Wednesday sent the measure to city attorneys for their analysis.

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Dear SPJ members and banquet attendees:

I want to share one final update on our 2015 journalism awards banquet at the Bali Hai Restaurant in San Diego, where dozens of us got so sick.

First, I want to apologize again for that experience. It ruined an otherwise fantastic celebration of our myriad accomplishments. I choose to focus on the evening instead of what followed. And I choose to look ahead to next year’s banquet, when we will honor the region’s excellent journalists one more time and celebrate our new distinction as the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2015 chapter of the year. That is something we should all be proud of.

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The Society of Professional Journalists’ San Diego chapter strongly condemns any attempt to retaliate against a news organization for critical coverage by filing unrelated lawsuits. The timing of one lawsuit suggests that is exactly what happened in San Diego.

On Feb. 23, San Diego’s inewsource published the first in a series of articles that were critical of prominent local attorney Cory Briggs. On April 9, San Diegans for Open Government, a group that Briggs has often represented, sued inewsource and its executive director over its relationship with KPBS, particularly for its office lease at San Diego State University. The lawsuit is the subject of a court hearing Friday.

There is a right way and a wrong way to raise complaints about news coverage, and this is the wrong way. News organizations — many facing severe financial challenges — should not have to defend coverage by spending significant resources on legal challenges that are unrelated to their critical reporting.