how to hide public records
how to hide public records
the ladwp board hired high-end law firm paul hastings to "conduct research into cpra exemptions."
A couple things about the president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power board, Cynthia McClain-Hill. First, I’ve got it on good authority that she will step down from the board this week. This follows some recent unflattering reporting. The LA Times, citing our initial reporting in 2022, acquired audio of McClain-Hill and former LADWP board president and U.S. Congressman Mel Levine having private talks on cyber security contracts before voting on them. Ethics laws bar that. I also wrote about how city employees said McClain-Hill lied on her per diem form to stay at a $700 a night, 5-star hotel in Dubai for COP28 when there were hotels for much cheaper. My buddy stayed at one for $150, and it looked amazing.
Now we are learning more about McClain-Hill and a report that her and the board commissioned in 2021 related to the LADWP legal scandal. The $3.5 million report, made public in a recent complaint with the State Bar of California by former city lawyer Paul Paradis, was done by white shoe firm Paul Hastings. It’s interesting for a number of reasons. For one, it’s a city department (LADWP) blaming another city department (the City Attorney’s office) for not stopping the sham Jones billing lawsuit in 2015, which, as Debaser readers know, started a whole mess of criminal activity.
The heavily-redacted report called the scandal an “abysmal failure of the City Attorney’s Office,” and that, “the City Attorneys failed to recognize inappropriate conduct or turned a blind-eye…and they abdicated their duty to protect the organization by asking the hard questions and enforcing ethical rules when others are unable to do so.”
But funnily enough the report makes no mention of the unethical conduct by McClain-Hill and Levine to give $10 million in no-bid contracts to the cyber security company Ardent.
What’s really interesting though are time sheets submitted by Paul Hastings. The time sheets billed for combing through LADWP records in 2022 that were subject to the California Public Records Act (CPRA). Attorneys reviewed, “emails regarding CPRA response,” “issues,” and held conferences with LADWP flak and McClain-Hill, as well as to conduct, “research into CPRA exemptions.” One request was from LA Times reporter Dakota Smith.
This is not normal. Private law firms don’t usually handle CPRA requests. Hiding public records is a big problem. At a minimum it’s improper. Paradis said Paul Hastings attorneys engaged in a coverup by, “sanitizing the various document productions made by the LADWP in response to such Public Record Act Requests by improperly withholding otherwise responsive documents so as to prevent any documents that could be potentially damaging to McClain-Hill from being produced.”
What were they hiding? And if it happened here, is this how it always is?
Pretty brazen to put it all in writing, but there it is, high-priced city lawyers running interference on records we have a right to access.
These people think they can do whatever they want. It’s so insulting. But rent is due!
Cleansing responses to document requests became common during the Garcetti Administration. Thus, I would make the same requests to a number of agencies at the same time without letting anyone know I was making multiple requests. Interestingly, one agency would produce dox which other agencies denied existing. From what I could ascertain, each agency or council district only hides dox which harmed them. While I seldom make requests for public documents anymore, my impression is that the new City Atty Hydee Feldman-Soto seems to feel "if it's harmful, hide it." The LADBS may have destroyed thousands of documents, but that's a story (lawsuit) for another day.
Love using the CPRA!