The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office is conducting an internal investigation into city employees’ use of Google Chat messages, which are automatically deleted after 24 hours.
The investigation was the result of an agreement between the city and the Crane Boulevard Safety Coalition, a community group that discovered the missing messages during a lawsuit involving the construction of a Mount Washington home.
Critics argue that automatic deletion of messages allows authorities to circumvent the California Public Records Act and the city’s own document retention policies.
In response to inquiries from the Times last week, city officials acknowledged that employees have long had the option to communicate with people inside and outside the company through messages that are permanently deleted after 24 hours. Officials declined to explain how the practice complies with state public records laws and city policies that require most records to be retained for at least two years.
“The City of Los Angeles has a history of corruption and self-dealing. Chats are deleted within 24 hours, facilitating a platform for these transactions without fear that someone will find the evidence.”Jamie T. Hall said. , an attorney representing the Crane Boulevard Safety Coalition. “Public records laws exist to ensure openness and transparency, and when records are intentionally deleted, they undermine democracy and encourage corruption.”
In a lawsuit filed in July 2023, the coalition challenged the city’s approval to build single-family homes on the steep hillsides of Mount Washington.
The lawsuit alleges, among other allegations, that the coalition’s appeals of construction projects did not receive fair hearings because of a practice of holding closed-door meetings and circulating confidential reports among city officials. In some cases, this included the project and the City Council member’s position on the project. The appeal was filed prior to a public hearing by the city’s Planning and Land Use Control Board.
The coalition argued for a pattern of perfunctory hearings that made it appear as if issues were already decided in advance.
Lawyers for the coalition learned about the missing messages through the discovery process in the lawsuit.
One of the documents obtained by the coalition through the lawsuit was a memo dated July 16, 2020, from the city’s Office of Information Technology. The memo states that Google Chat is “off the record for direct and group messages” and includes “the ability to chat with external users.”
An April 6, 2022 memo from the agency informs city staff that one-on-one and group Google Chat messages “conversations are not saved and are automatically deleted after 24 hours.” . The memo contrasts these messages with messages sent through another feature called Chat Spaces, which has the “History” setting turned on and becomes “discoverable.”
“Google Chat one-on-one and ad-hoc group messages will be automatically and permanently deleted,” Eduardo Magos, deputy commissioner of the Information Technology Agency, said in an email response to the Times last week, explaining the ongoing practice. I admitted it. 24 hours later. ”
Magos said the defunct chat feature was part of the Google Workspace suite, which about 26,000 employees had access to and had been in some form since the early 2010s, when the city began contracting with Google for email and other services. It was said that it was available for use.
Sean McMorris, an ethics and transparency expert at Common Cause, a good government watchdog group, said automatic deletion of Google Chat messages “may violate local and state laws and is not a best practice. “I think there is no transparency either.” ”
“State law is pretty clear about a citizen’s right to access most things related to their business,” McMorris said. He added that the city does not keep the messages long enough to determine whether they are subject to or exempt from disclosure under the Public Records Act.
He said the disappearing messages allow city officials to discuss public affairs, such as where they stand on issues and how to vote, with the understanding that the messages will be deleted after 24 hours and will not be carried over in a public records request.
The Times sent questions to city officials last year about employees’ use of Google Chat. The Times also filed a public records request for Google chat messages sent in the 24 hours prior to the request.
Documents obtained by the Times show that use of Google Chat by city employees is so widespread that public business matters are sometimes discussed on the platform. A screenshot of the employee’s chat log is prominently displayed with the message “History is turned off. Messages sent with history turned off will be deleted after 24 hours.”
One public records request the Times sent to then-City Councilman Paul Krekorian’s office on Dec. 5 for Google chats sent and received by someone in the office revealed that he had been asked to send and receive Google chats from people in the office, including daily routines such as lunch and dinner plans. From personal matters to city business, including the activities of Krekorian and Mayor Karen Bass.
A separate records request provides documents showing that Krekorian’s publicist, Hugh Esten, discussed the “nomination” with Chelsea Luchtenberg, a spokeswoman for City Council member Eunice Hernandez, in a Google chat last year. It was done. Esten also discussed the “email” with Stella Stahl, a spokeswoman for City Council member Nitya Raman.
The Times received the messages from Krekorian’s office after requesting correspondence related to the City Council’s unusual decision to reject Neighborhood President Jamie York’s nomination to the city Ethics Commission. On August 21, 2023, the Times filed a public record request for related communications from August 16 to August 21.
Mr. Esten did not respond to several questions about whether Mr. Krekorian’s use of Google Chat in his office violates public records laws. Current City Council President Marquise Harris Dawson’s office did not respond to questions about Google Chat.
In response to questions from the Times earlier this month, Bus spokesman Zach Seidl wouldn’t say whether the “disappear” feature violated record-keeping rules.
He said the city’s Information Technology Agency has “exclusive control over the configuration of the system.”
Last month, the Crane Boulevard Safety Coalition threatened to file additional lawsuits over the city’s use of Google Chat.
The agreement between the city and the coalition, signed by a judge on Dec. 11, states that the city attorney’s office will “immediately conduct an internal investigation into the city’s record-keeping and related policies and endeavor to brief the city council privately.” It is written.
Karen Richardson, a spokeswoman for City Atty, said: Heidi Feldstein Soto’s office said, “We are gathering information and investigating the process,” adding, “We do not comment on pending litigation.”
The City Council was scheduled to discuss the case with attorneys during its Dec. 11 adjournment.
“We hope the City Council will end this practice because the city has a duty to preserve these records,” said Mark Kenyon, president of the Crane Boulevard Safety Coalition and a Mount Washington resident. “We believe the public has a right to know what their government is doing.”
