CommentsEASTSIDER-While the Neighborhood Councils have always been a stepchild to the City, the Virus has evidently given it an excuse to blow off important requirements like handling Public Records Requests.
The Issue
Since the COVID-19 virus and elimination of in person NC meetings, there has been an increase in “Special Meetings” under the Brown Act. As the FirstAmendmentCoalition notes,
“Special meetings may be called, but only upon 24 hours notice to each local newspaper of general circulation, radio or television station that has in writing requested notice. The notice must be posted in a location freely accessible to the public. Only the business specified for discussion at the special meeting may be addressed. 9”
And until sometime recent, EmpowerLA’s own website made the posting requirements very clear:
“AGENDA POSTING
Per California’s Brown act, Regular Meeting agendas must be posted 72 hours prior to their start time and Special Meeting agendas posted 24 hours prior. Agendas must be shared in the following 5 ways before this deadline:
- In the physical location(s) determined by your Council
- To the Board or Committee members expected to attend the meeting
- On your Neighborhood Council’s website (if you have one)
- To your email mailing list, and
5th To the City’s Early Notification System (ENS), which allows Angelenos to subscribe to agendas for the City meetings of their choice. To get your agenda posted to ENS, email it to [email protected] with the name of your Neighborhood Council and the meeting title and date in the subject line (e.g., “Echo Park NC Regular Land Use Meeting Agenda Thurs 8/18”).
Do not forget, when you are creating an agenda, to include an email and phone number to contact if a stakeholder would like to request translation services or needs help with ADA accessibility issues.”
Seems pretty clear and unambiguous. However, in at least Highland Park and Glassell Park, Special Meetings have recently been held with less than 24-hours-notice and DONE has said that this is perfectly OK. Their defense is that, as long as a Neighborhood Council has submitted the Special Meeting Notice to DONE’s ENS System (Early Notification System), it is fine to violate the 24-hour rule.
The implications of this are serious. And recently, a Highland Park stakeholder filed a formal grievance regarding notice requirements and was told “too bad.”
So, I of course, sent off a Public Records Request:
The Public Records Request
“Request #20-4481
Closed
Recently a question came up regarding the minimum Brown Act notice requirements for a Special Meeting of a Neighborhood Council. There was no dispute that a physical notice must be posted 24 hours in advance of the meeting.
However, there seemed to be a question regarding the electronic notice. I believe that DONE was taking the position that as long as the NC provided the notice in to the ENS (Early Notice System) that somehow the 24 hour requirement would be satisfied whether or not DONE's ENS system did anything about forwarding said notice.
If for some reason DONE really believes that the date stamp of entering the Notice into the ENS system, I would like to know if the LA City Attorney has a written opinion stating the legal basis for a novel interpretation of the Act, and would like a copy of any and all records between DONE itself, BONC, and/or the LA City Attorney concerning the issue of whether or not 24 hour notice is somehow satisfied by sending a notice to the DONE ENS system.
Received
July 8, 2020 via web
Again, seems relatively simple. And here’s the response I received one day later:
“Request Closed Hide Public
As of this date, our office has determined that the Office of the City Clerk is not in possession of any documents or information relating to your request. Please be advised that this response does not include any records that may be in the custody of other City departments. Each department in the City of Los Angeles maintains and is responsible for their own records. This request with the Office of the City Clerk is considered closed.
For all other city department’s records please go to their respective webpage and contact them directly or please contact 311 Call Center at 213-473-3231.
--
Please contact the Office of the City Attorney at (213) 978-8100 or visit their website at http://www.atty.org for the records you are seeking.
July 9, 2020, 8:53am”
I took all this time laying out the details because I know that the PRA response is bullshit. So I hunkered down and did some more research. Guess what? You got it, they lied.
First of all, it turned out that buried in the BONC Documents, there is a real-life Board of Neighborhood Commissioners Policy on point, and it’s a doozy:
- Neighborhood Councils shall submit a copy of all regular and special Board and Committee agendas to the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (Department) to be posted through the Early Notification System (ENS). The agenda for regular meetings shall be submitted to the Department not less than 72 hours in advance of the meeting and the agenda for special meetings shall be submitted to the Department not less than 24 hours in advance of the meeting. As soon as feasible, the Department will submit the agenda for posting to the ENS system. Accordingly, posting the notices of meetings to the ENS system will not be required to comply with the Brown Act's time limits for posting agendas. - - Emphasis added.
Think about it. If an NC Board can send a document to the admittedly untimely and maybe incompetent DONE staff that handles the ENS system, all time limits under the Brown Act are waived, the Agenda may or may not ever get sent out, and everyone is absolved of liability. Hot Damn!
The Takeaway
As I said in the beginning, DONE is breaking down. First, the LA City Clerk’s Public Records Request system is useless, and in this case, they probably lied as the above BONC Policy, a public record, proves. Second, in doing some further inquiries, I discovered a response to an NC Grievance which points out that the BONC Policy trumps the Brown Act regarding Special Meetings.
Therefore, the City Clerk’s response was meaningless. The LA District Attorney does not address public records requests from you and me. Therefore, we may never know what genius in the City Attorney’s Office blessed the BONC policy, and good luck finding out if there was even a legal opinion by a discoverable attorney in their shop.
Just because I’m stubborn, I am going to write the City Attorney’s Office directly, and we shall see if they have done anything to comply with AB 2257, which, effective January 2019, required new and additional posting requirements by public agencies. If you are interested, here’s the link.
This is all very sad, but I’m not making it up.
(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
