Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is under severe scrutiny after deleting a text message she sent during the area’s tragic January fire.
But she was not the only elected civil servant who escaped her correspondence during those history-making days.
Katherine Berger, LA County superintendent who represents an area that has been devastated by Eton Fire, also routinely removes her text messages, her spokesperson said.
“The automatic iPhone setup for Supervisor Burger’s iPhone is set for 30 days. She may also manually delete text,” Burger spokesman Helenchavez Garcia said last month.
The Times submitted a request for public records regarding Burger’s communications with Bass from January 7th to late February. Burger’s office did not provide written communications accordingly despite sending buses and texting late at night on January 7th, but after a diplomatic trip to Ghana, the bus had returned to the city.
Four other supervisors — Lindsay Hovas, Hilda Solis, Holly Mitchell and Janice Hahn — should not use the auto-emitting feature on your phone, according to their spokesman.
Chavez Garcia said in an email that “there is no pre-determined way that a supervisor applies when selecting a message to be manually deleted.”
Horvath spokesman Constance Farrell said her understanding is that county officials are supposed to hold text messages for two years to comply with the county’s record-keeping policy. Horvath’s office in February after the Times Public Records Request. The message showed that supervisors would sparr in bass during the fire.
The county records do not mention text messages, but say that daily “management records” should be kept for two years.
The board’s executive branch said the public records law applies to text messages, but in some cases it may be exempt from disclosure.
“Whether a supervisor’s text is a public record depends on whether it is a text about people’s business conduct,” Stephen Hernandez, Chief Deputy Chair of the Executive Office, said in a statement.
According to this, employees must admit that every year all electronic communications, such as emails and instant messaging, are sent on county devices.
Bass previously had his phone set to the 30-day automatic deletion setting. This is much shorter than the city’s two-year retention period.
However, after being forced into the Times, which submitted a request for public records for the mayor’s communications during the Palisade fire, Bass’ Office said it could use “specialist technology.”
(The mayor’s textbooks in March, and the era challenges the city’s argument that even if city officials ultimately provide some texts, the era does not need to release them under state law.)
Also, President Markey Harris Dawson, the Los Angeles City Council speaker, who served as mayor of Bus Stead when the fire broke out, remains unknown.
After the Times submitted a request for public records for a correspondence sent to Base by Harris Dawson, Harris Dawson, received it from her between January 6th and January 16th, Harris Dawson’s office said there was “no responsive record.”
Harris-Dawson’s office did not respond to repeated questions in a few months about why there was no correspondence or whether it was deleted.
“It’s a shame to see that practice leaked the streets (to the county). I wanted it to be the absurdity of our two big leaders, RA City Hall Shenanigan and our two big leaders.”
Kuan, who leads a good advocacy group focusing on transparency, said he believes that proper recordkeeping from January is even more important given the historical importance of the fire.