San Diego’s seal is shown at the downtown City Administration Building. Megan Wood/inewsource
Is San Diego one of the “most transparent municipalities in the nation”?
That is the claim by the mayor’s office
Once in a while there comes a politician who considers the issue of transparency an important element of local government.
Politicians by their nature are upwardly mobile — judging by their behaviors, most don’t believe open government issues help them move up the success ladder. Many talk the talk but few actually walk the walk.
Is Mayor Todd Gloria a talker or a walker?
That’s a timely question after a recent press release from his office announced an email retention policy of five years. His media office’s release stated that the mayor is “furthering his commitment to transparency, accountability and fiscal discipline.”
It’s good to know city employees won’t be burning records or flushing them down the toilet for at least five years.
As the press release claims, this retention time is longer than most agencies or municipalities in and out of the San Diego region. As far as I can tell, this statement is true.
Don’t confuse this electronic record retention policy with the city’s vital records program that was created back in 1986. That program is related to records like the city charter, tax and financial documents, anything that’s needed to help get the city back to business after a disaster. Some are kept forever. But these are just a small part of the records stored.
You may be surprised to learn this five-year idea didn’t come from the policy side of the government — not the council, mayor or city attorney.
Rachel Laing, director of communications for Gloria, said it was “initiated by the Department of IT” as a way to save money and “in response to the challenges of maintaining an ever-expanding store of hundreds of millions of emails.”
When enacted, “the city will begin, on a daily basis, deleting email that is not on legal hold, is not the subject of a then current public records act request, and that is older than five years.” Which means they can have a smaller, more searchable archive which will save money and speed up processing open record requests.
In 2021, there were 6,589 public record requests, a figure that has trended upwards for years save for a slight drop during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
Before the mayor and city staff are given the “walking the walk” award, perhaps a check with those with first hand knowledge on this issue of transparency in government is warranted.
One such person is Donna Frye, a former San Diego City Council member. On the front line for years advocating for transparency, she was appointed by then mayor Bob Filner to be the first and last Director of Open Government She was the obvious choice for the short-lived role given her well-documented reputation as an advocate for open government. Filner experienced that himself when Frye was the first high profile political leader to call him out for his misdeeds towards women who he supervised.
What was her take on the claim by the mayor’s office that this email retention policy “maintains San Diego’s place as one of the most — if not the most — transparent municipalities in the nation?”
Says the former councilwoman, “It does not matter to me how long other cities retain documents; this is not a contest of who has a longer retention policy. What matters is whether the documents the public needs are available when they are requested.”
She adds, “This is especially true as it relates to litigation because as we recently learned, a member of the former mayor’s staff regularly ignored the law and deleted public records that may play a significant role in the Ash Street lawsuits.”
“We all know that litigation can last well beyond five years, and we need to keep that in mind as this moves forward,” she said. So San Diego is not yet the “most transparent,” she added. “The city can and should do better.”
Local attorney Dan Gilleon says given his experience seeking public records from Gloria’s office, “his words sound like a political yarn being spun.” San Diego’s government has “been anything but transparent,” he said. “The city has always shown itself eager to stretch logic and distort the law to avoid producing public records that it wants to keep hidden.”
Going outside the city for another perspective, I asked Julie Hayward Biggs to tell it like it is. No problem, she assured me, as she is immune from political retaliation in California because her law practice is now in Indiana.
But while in California, Biggs was a city attorney, assistant city attorney and counsel for over a dozen California cities. She’s considered an expert on ethics, referendums, elections, and open government.
Biggs noted that mayors need the support of their city attorneys in promoting open government “Bear in mind that city attorneys are not on the ‘other side’ if they support the law with regard to public records,” she said.
Nevertheless, back in 2019, during the Kevin Faulconer administration, current San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott tried to get state Sen. Ben Hueso to create additional hurdles to accessing public records.
Where does all this leave Gloria?
“What I have seen of Gloria, he is not someone I think of as a hero” of transparency and open government, she said. “Nevertheless, he appears to be right on this issue.”
“Public entities are just that — public. While there may be some logistical issues with preserving some public documents forever, a reasonable time frame like five years for electronic emails should be applauded. Emails require no physical storage and should be easily available almost forever in my view without cost.”
JW August is a San Diego-based broadcast and digital journalist.