CommentsEASTSIDER-Last week, the LA City Attorney’s Office made it official -- they will not engage with NC Stakeholders any more than they engage with NC Boards. Nor will they voluntarily share any legal advice to BONC or DONE -- like how they allowed a patent violation of the Brown Act to be voted on by BONC.
About a month ago, in July, I started to look at the magical way that BONC and DONE claimed that Neighborhood Councils do not have to comply with the Ralph Brown Act when they call for a Special Meeting.
Since the language of the statue is clear and unambiguous, it seemed like a small miracle that the LA City Attorney told BONC that it was OK to adopt an official LA City Policy in 2014 which stated:
“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.
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.”
You can find that article here.
The Magic Extends
I thought the BONC and the City Attorney’s acts were magic, because, out of the literally thousands of public agencies in the State of California, no one, not one, has had the brass to claim the state law doesn’t apply, especially in light of DONE’s marginally useful app (ENS) of an even more marginal LA City Department.
Shortly after that article, I discovered that DONE and the City Clerk had an equally magic concept of what constitutes a public record in the case of Neighborhood Councils. That resulted in (yes) another public records request to obtain a copy of the tape of a committee meeting in Highland Park, which should be pretty basic stuff.
However, it turned out that someone freaked out and I got a bizarre response from either Puff the Magic Dragon, or a CYA from “Administrative Services” sent via “Nextrequest.” In an August 6 article all of this is addressed in detail:
They are saying that “The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment only has custody and control of the records in its possession.” The implication is that the 98 Neighborhood Councils may have a bunch of documents, videos or audios relating to their meetings, but DONE doesn’t want to know about any of them and they aren’t really records that are subject to the Public Records Act.
That is total bullshit. Do we really think that the 98 Neighborhood Councils went out and bought their own websites? Nyet. DONE is responsible for all the Neighborhood Council websites. Therefore, anything that resides on these websites, by definition, a “public record.”
The Final Insult
This week I got my final answer, or non-answer to the letter I had sent to the City Attorney’s Office asking for a copy of their Brown Act legal opinion. They simply had the letter “Return to Sender.”
A look at the envelope was illuminating. I had addressed it to Carmen Hawkins (the Supervising Attorney for matters Neighborhood Councils) at the City Attorney’s office at 200 N. Main Street. And indeed, there is a stamp on the letter indicating that they received it on August 4. But then, in addition to the Return to Sender, there is a yellow something pasted on the bottom right of the letter saying:
“Return to Sender
Attempted - Not Known
Unable to Forward”
What makes this fascinating is that I used the current LA City Attorney Office Directory to verify both that Carmen Hawkins is the current NC Attorney’s supervisor, as well as the internal mail stop was hers.
So either the City Attorney’s own directory is inaccurate, Carmen Hawkins has died, retired, or quit the position, or they are simply going to blow off any attempt by an LA City stakeholder (or for that matter a Neighborhood Council Board member), to say anything short of a lawsuit.
The Takeaway
The reason that I went through all this excruciating detail is to prove a simple and unpalatable point -- the LA City Attorney represents BONC and DONE as clients, but they do not represent any Neighborhood Council or their Board. Period.
Full stop.
They are the enemy, suppressing, twisting, and creating go-nowhere legal advice designed to simply keep the lid on while the Neighborhood Council’s whither on the vine.
For example, all these years when the “City Attorney” gave “confidential” legal advice to the NC Boards, telling them what they could and could not do, it was not legal advice that had to be followed, since the NC Boards are not clients. Not binding at all, and essentially so much cow puckey!
In my particular case, I’m guessing that the City Attorney can’t provide a legal opinion to support BONC’s interpretation of the Brown Act because there isn’t one. That’s right, it was probably the usual City Attorney giving BONC a verbal OK to do what DONE wanted them to do. After all, who can challenge them?
An even worse possibility is that if there really was a legal opinion, whoever did it should be sanctioned by the California Bar, because there is absolutely no exception to the Special Meeting section of the Brown Act that I can find.
Bullshit again, and now the LA City Attorney is in collusion with the City Clerk, BONC, and DONE in hiding the reality.
Contact your City Councilmember, and ask them to ask the City Attorney for the legal opinion which backstops the BONC Policy Memo from 2014, stating that they can ignore the Brown Act as long as somebody sends an agenda to the “ENS” system.
Think about it. Have some fun. Give the Council members a chance to put the screws to Feuer’s office instead of having them take the heat for Garcetti’s fully owned BONC and DONE. Under the Charter, Hiz Honor appoints all, and the City Council has minimal input, but gets to field the fallout.
What the heck. Why not?
(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.
