The Napa Valley Register’s lawsuit against American Canyon has come to an end, six months after it started.

We are pleased that the city of American Canyon released a revealing report about a waste of taxpayer funds — some $60,000 in educational bonuses given to firefighters who earned bogus degrees from an online diploma mill.

Today the public can read for itself an assessment that lays varying amounts of blame on individual firefighters, the firefighters union, the American Canyon Fire District’s negotiator and the fire district board (whose members are the members of the American Canyon City Council) for their roles in what was a mixed case of greed and negligence.

We are less pleased about the outcome of the lawsuit, in which a judge rejected the Register’s claim that American Canyon’s initial decision to conceal the report was a violation of the California Public Records Act. While the Register strongly considered an appeal of the ruling, we did not pursue it for several reasons.

First and foremost, American Canyon actually released the report before the judge could rule. The public release of the report was our goal, and the mission was accomplished.

While we would have liked to see the judge agree with our assessment that the initial decision to conceal the report was a breach of the public trust, and while we believe that an appellate court might have seen it our way, the cost and uncertainty associated with continuing the case were not worth the pursuit.

It seems that one reason American Canyon withheld the report for so long was a potential legal dispute between it and the union, Fire Fighters Local 1186. On the February day the American Canyon Fire District finally released the report, it also issued a joint press release with the union acknowledging that the bonuses were not in the public interest, but stating specifically that the bonuses did not violate the contract between the union and the fire district.

Negotiations on that potentially explosive subject may explain American Canyon’s delay in releasing the report.

Today, American Canyon bars firefighters and other workers from using the bogus bonus program. Firefighters who were involved in the scandal and still on the payroll have agreed to pay the money back. Finally, we expect the city to take to heart a point made in the report, that city leaders — whether acting in their capacity as the fire board or the city council — must more actively manage contract negotiations involving taxpayer dollars.

In sum, we continue to believe American Canyon leaders owed it to the public to explain the bonuses. While we feel any delay was unwarranted, we’re glad they ultimately did allow the report to see the light of day.

We feel it was our responsibility to push hard for the release of that report. In the future, if the city, fire district or other agencies that affect the Napa County public take actions that, in our view, undermine the public’s right to know, we’ll again turn to California public records laws to get the information out.