Although the city had told the public the Hall park construction would begin in 2010, there has been great concern that the city did not have enough money saved up to open the park. The official budget projections show Phase I as being under funded. The ETA, Council candidates and the Parks and Rec Commission have repeatedly asked city staff why the construction cost estimates are being withheld from the public. Staff respond by saying they do not want to share what has been provided by the consultant to date. They claim the information that has been submitted to the city indicates the costs will be substantially less than originally predicted and imply that funding is not an issue.

Mayor Bond was quoted yesterday in the NCTimes:

The proposed Hall property park, which is south of Santa Fe Drive and west of Interstate 5, may go from the planning stages into the early construction phase in 2011.

“We’re going to have to take a look at what we need, rather than what we want,” Bond said, adding that the city has most, but not all, of the money it will need for the first phase of construction.

The contract for the park construction plans has no deadlines within it.

Berkeley citizens grew tired of their city council dragging their feet and have gotten enough signatures to take an initiative to the voters that would:

• Bigger Soapbox: Public commentators would have an extra minute (three total) to talk about an issue and could, if they wanted to, speak to every single agenda item at a meeting. During public hearings, the amount of time for speakers to say what they want to say is greatly expanded.
• Miniaturized Initiative Process: Members of the public would be able to place an item on the City Council agenda if 100 signatures are mustered – 50 signatures for any commission.
• This Venue is Too Small: If at any time there is not enough space in the council chambers to accommodate the number of people present, the council would have to adjourn to a larger location while still providing other mandates in the process, such as a live television feed.
• Behind Closed Doors: The council would have to not only report how members voted during closed session, regardless of whether action was taken, they would have to vote again in public.
• Preparation is Perfection: Agenda packets would have to be distributed no later than 11 days before the meeting while a number of restrictions also apply, such as no emergency items by the council except under extremely narrow circumstances.
• Let the Records Flow: Any record that is not restricted to the public would be made available online, such as economic conflict of interest forms, campaign finance data, and appointment calenders. Even certain restricted information would be shined on, such as certain communiques between the city attorney and council about pending litigation.
• Who Watches the Watchers: The ordinance would give birth to an Enforcement Commission that would, essentially, be “above” the council in certain regards: independent legal representation, the ability to draw from the legal fund, powers to sue the City over sunshine violations, and the authority determine whether allegations of sunshine wrongdoing are founded.
• With Whom Are You Having Lunch? The ordinance would require top city officials to keep their appointment calendars online, and to update them weekly.
• Early Bedtime: Berkeley City Council meetings, which have been known to go on for hours, would have an 11 pm curfew under the proposed ordinance.

Read more about Berkeley’s move here.

Read about the 4-1 vote against a Sunshine Ordinance for Encinitas here.

From a motion being filed in San Diego Superior Court:

The City denied Cummins’ request for the public records concerning the condition of the streets, contending that disclosure of the consultant’s report would disclose what the City was thinking since the City took the report made some changes to it and ultimately used it as the basis for street maintenance recommendations to the City Council.  (Verified Petition, ¶¶ 7-11, 16.)  This action for a writ of mandate (Code of Civil Procedure § 1085) and for declaratory relief (Code of Civil Procedure § 1060) followed.

On November 19, 2010, after receiving the City’s Responses to Cummins Special Interrogatories (First Set), Cummins counsel requested in writing that the City participate in a “meet and confer” concerning the inadequate responses, but received no response.  (Declaration of Dennis A. Winston (“Winston Declaration”), ¶¶ 4, 5.)

On November 30, 2010, after scheduling this motion and being informed of the Court’s program to “meet and confer” on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Cummins counsel requested in writing that the City participate in a meet and confer under the Court’s auspices.  Again, the City did not respond to this request at all!  (Winston Declaration, ¶¶ 6, 7, 8.)

What does this mean? The city won’t answer questions about the facts in the case and they won’t meet with the open government attorneys.

Could it be that the City’s story has been full of beans?

Retaining email is cheap and takes no effort. Retaining email increases transparency.

City attorneies in Orange County and representatives of Californians Aware are clashing over emails and their status under the law requiring cities to preserve records for at least two years.

The Voice of OC reports:

An Irvine City Council resolution passed in 2002 calls for emails in the system older than 30 days to be destroyed. It bases the policy on a section of the government code that allows a city to destroy a record when it is “no longer required.”

McKee called the resolution “clearly illegal.”

“Nothing in the CPRA [California Public Records Act] or Gov’t Code sect. 34090 allows the wholesale destruction of email records,” McKee wrote in an email.

City officials have defended their practice of destroying emails as legal and, in at least one case, argue there simply aren’t enough resources to identify and save emails considered public records.

Instead they have decided to throw everything out? It takes no staff effort to simply save everything as many large corporations do, with little expense to the taxpayer.

Huntington Beach City Attorney Jennifer McGrath, whose city regularly destroys emails after they become more than 90 days old, says the city’s policy is in line with state law. McGrath acknowledged that emails are public records subject to the state’s public records law but said that the law governing retention of city records does not apply to emails.

“They [emails] are not records intended to be retained in the normal course of business for the city,” McGrath said. She added that the Public Records Act does not specify retention time.

“The law gives local agencies the ability to determine what’s a public record that is of lasting importance to the conduct of the public agency’s business and that needs to be maintained,” Speers said.

McKee counters that McGrath’s interpretation of state law is wrong. He said email, as a medium, does not change the fact that as a written communication it is required to be kept as long as other public records.

“The two-year retention applies to all public records. I don’t know how she’s coming up with that interpretation,” McKee said.

McKee had a recent showdown with Lake Forest over its retention policy. The city was about to move into a policy of purging emails in Microsoft Outlook that are more than 90 days old.

He caught wind of the plan, and one of his attorneys, Kelly Aviles, sent a letter to the city attorney in September threatening a writ of mandate to stop destroying city emails. Since then, the city has indefinitely postponed its destruction policy and is working to provide city employees with public records training, according to city Public Information Officer Debra Rose.

“Our whole purpose of this is to make sure records are handled properly” Rose said.
McKee says he is still waiting for the city to send him a draft of an approach that will satisfy the law. He also said he hopes the experience with Lake Forest will be the starting point of, eventually, sweeping reform of local governments’ policies regarding emails.

“We thought this would be a good place to really come up with something to tout to other agencies as a reasonable approach,” McKee said.

The City of Encinitas destroys emails at the will of each account user. Important memos can be kept from the public if there is not at least one council member willing to carefully retain email. Here is an example.

This issue was first brought up in 2004, and again this August via email to the council. There was no response from the council to the August email.

Retaining email is cheap. Retaining email increases transparency.