"LA's Paranoid, Paralyzed Governments, Part 2" by Daniel Guss
How not answering an innocuous question cost LA taxpayers thousands of dollars
@TheGussReport on Twitter - How long should it take to find out where a random Los Angeles politician was on a given day and time, months earlier? Not what they were doing. Just where they were. How much taxpayer money should be squandered delaying access to this simple nugget of information that is a matter of public record?
The answers are a few minutes and not one dime.
How long it recently did take is ripe for the next episode of our experiential subject, LA's Paranoid, Paralyzed Governments.
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Let’s start with a premise that few in Los Angeles can deny. Our mass transit system, The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or Metro, is a deadly, dangerous and filthy inconvenience. After endless billions of dollars spent developing it, Metro is a far-from-awesome, far-from-complete mess.
With no genuine security, Metro has murders, rapes, robberies and, as I wrote in CityWatch in 2019, child exploitation on buses and trains that often function as homeless daycare centers with ill-considered (i.e. absorbent) cloth seating.
Yet some LA politicians post their grinning, thumbs-upping selfies on Metro, thinking that we’re so gullible, we’ll conclude that if it’s safe for them, we may go on it, too.
Recently, one such tweet from LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath caught our attention, and not only because those accompanying her are almost identical to her in their appearance.
What caught our attention is that Horvath was celebrating riding Metro at 11:19am from her office to its 11am board meeting, which is precisely - one - stop at the southern end of the Red Line.
But before having a little fun with the Supe’s tweet, we wanted to be sure that she was indeed traveling to the meeting from her DTLA office, as opposed to starting from a more distant satellite location.
They refused to tell us and refused to explain why despite it being more than a month later.
En garde, then. We pulled that proverbial thread-on-the-sweater and submitted a public records request to see how onerous they would make finding out.
They had 10 days to respond.
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Our public records inquiry was made on April 18th, which is more than a month after Horvath’s tweet. Six days later, on the 24th, the Board of Supervisors Executive Office emailed to say they’d need until May 8th. I pointed out that that exceeded the 10-day response deadline, but that I’d be happy to reset the timing and consider the 24th the first day of the request.
They acknowledged their mathematical error and promised a response by May 3rd.
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On May 3rd, I received an email, this time from the County Counsel’s office, citing “unusual circumstances,” which weren’t unusual at all.
That’s a phrase governments use all the time to delay coughing up even the most innocuous bits of information as they try to figure out why the inquiry was made and how little they can disclose.
The email, which included no fewer than five members of the County Counsel office, promised a response after 14 additional days to which they are entitled, citing the need “to consult with other agencies having substantial interest in the request.”
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On May 17th, the last day of the extension, County Counsel said they needed yet another 14 days — to which they were not entitled — “as we continue to review the files.”
What — files — are — they — reviewing?
We just wanted to know where Horvath was prior to her 11am meeting on March 16th.
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On May 31st, which if you’re keeping count, is 43 days of government attorneys and crew reviewing records since our initial inquiry, County Counsel provided a substantially redacted calendar for Horvath.
All that the County legal eagles would let us see are three hours of redacted activity which could be either work or play, a couple of Metro meetings, drinks at the Biltmore and a roast of LA City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson in Beverly Hills.
Such swells!
Such champions of the poor and underprivileged!
Yes, we could file suit and ask a judge to bust-open the hidden agenda, so to speak, and award us the cost of doing that. But had Horvath’s office simply answered our initial inquiry (at what location was the Supe just prior to her 11am Metro meeting?) they could have saved the County a hundred or more hours of attorney and other staff time over 43 days.
We simply wanted to know why she was mugging it up for a one-stop train ride but found out something more eye-opening; the costly lengths to which our paranoid and paralyzed governments will go to keep us in the dark.
Perhaps the secret behind these costly delays and hidden activity is that while being an elected politician in LA isn’t necessarily an easy job, it’s a lot easier than they want us to believe. To wit, in some places, these jobs are part-time and far less lucrative.
That’s my perspective until evidence to the contrary is provided…without any redaction.
I’ll be on The John Phillips Show on 790-KABC at 1pm today to chat about this and more with Randy Wang, where full disclosure is easier, free and a lot more fun.
Follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport and sign-up for my free Substack newsletter.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is nominated for four ‘23 LA Press Club journalism awards. He is City Editor for the Mayor Sam network, and has been a featured contributor for CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW 89.9 FM, KRLA 870 AM, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and the Los Angeles Times in its sports, opinion, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)