LA Times sues city of Los Angeles over Mayor Karen Bass' deleted text messages about wildfires
The Los Angeles Times (The Times) is suing the city over Mayor Karen Bass allegedly deleting texts amid the bungled response to California wildfires.
Local officials’ handling of the crisis has been widely condemned as an indictment of California’s government, especially with Bass away on a trip to Africa for the swearing-in of Ghana’s president when the Palisades Fire erupted on Jan. 7. The mayor did not get back to L.A. until Jan. 8.
The Times sued the City of L.A. on Thursday, accusing officials of breaking the law by withholding and deleting the mayor’s text messages and other records during the wildfires.
In a news article on the paper's own lawsuit, The Times’ staff writer Sonja Sharp reported, "The city has already turned over many of the exchanges between Mayor Karen Bass and other officials sought by Times reporters. But officials have argued they are not compelled to do so under state public records laws."
"The Times disagreed," Sharp wrote. "Empowering public officials to scrub their records or to decide which are subject to the law sets a dangerous precedent, Thursday’s suit argued."
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"It’s bigger than these text messages," outside counsel for The Times, Kelly Aviles, said. "The city seems to believe they can destroy whatever they want whenever they want, and that they don’t have a duty to the public to retain public records."
The Times reported that the mayor’s office, after initially saying the texts were deleted, "ultimately said it was able to recover the deleted texts, and last week provided about 125 messages, noting that an unspecified number of others were ‘redacted and/or withheld’ based on exemptions to the law."
Counsel to the mayor, David Michaelson, told The Times' reporter Julia Wick that these so-called "ephemeral" texts were beyond the reach of the California Public Records Act, and "cited a 1981 Supreme Court decision that cast ‘fleeting thoughts and random bits of information’ as exempt from records requests."
But The Times’ lawyers argued this does not apply to texts and other electronic communications.
"The City’s apparent position that an official may delete a text communication at any time as ‘ephemeral’ until a public records request is received would destroy the presumption of access to public records," The Times’ lawsuit said. "All a public official would have to do to avoid public scrutiny is destroy the texts immediately after creating them."
The Times reported further that these are not the only records that have been destroyed, nor are they the only ones still being actively pursued by journalists.
Investigative reporter Alene Tchekmedyian was said to have sought "emails, text messages, reports, planning documents and memos — about fire planning and predeployment resources" from then-L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley and her subordinates.
Likewise, City Hall reporter David Zahniser reportedly petitioned for "copies of correspondence regarding emergency preparations, high winds, wildfire conditions and the National Weather Service."
The Times said, "Zahniser received some records, but not the text messages he’d asked for. Tchekmedyian’s request was closed without any communications provided.."
Michaelson told Fox News Digital in an email that "The Mayor's office has responded to hundreds of public records requests since she was elected and we will continue to do so. The Mayor's office released responsive texts to a PRA request from the Times last week and the Office will continue to respond to public record requests."
Fox News Digital also reached out for comment from the L.A. Times and the city attorney but did not receive an immediate reply.