Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutSS3 - Records Retention Schedule - CorrespondenceReceived After Agenda Printed April 22, 2014 Brown, Leilani Agenda Item No. SS3 From: Douglas [djherich @yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, April 21, 2014 10:58 AM To: Brown, Leilani Cc: Buzby, Lisa; Harp, Aaron; Hill, Rush Subject: Fw: City Council Meeting Agenda - correction of e-mail address * corrected e-mail transmission for Leilani Brown: Ibrown0newoortbeachca.aov PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT reply to: diherich yahoo.com - - - -- Forwarded Message - - - -- From: Douglas <diherich(cDvahoo.com> To: I brown(@ newportbeachca.gov Cc: "RHill(c)NewportBeachCa.gov" <RHill(@NewportBeachCa.gov >; "aharp(cDnewportbeachca.gov" <aharp(ilnewportbeachca.gov >; " Imulvihill(a)newportbeachca.gov" < Imulvihill (a- )newportbeachca.gov >; "dkiff(a)newportbeachca.gov" <dkiff(a)newportbeachca.gov> Sent: Monday, April 21, 2014 10:52 AM Subject: City Council Meeting Agenda ATTN: Leilani Brown, City Clerk \via electronic transomission: Ibrown(&newoortbeachca.aov City of Newport Beach Government Officials and Staff: Re: City council meeting agenda item: "draft amendments" A "public" observation of "City official" conduct and performance; Where is the "public" input on this 'storage of all audio recordings' amendment ? ? ?? By "public ", this definition includes all the people, not just the electorate and /or body politic. Prior to making ANY of these so called amendments, I might suggest that your staff carefully review this proposed amendment to "City" policy because the current actual "cost" of data storage and backup protection is only a minute fraction of what this report suggests. Perhaps $100.00 for 20 GB of A/V data storage and secure back up was considered 'acceptable' by cost standards of that day (circa 2011) but they no longer apply and an update is necessary in my humble opinion. In fact, this comparison is rather compelling in that it possibly evidences the "City's" lack of transparency in an intentionally planned effort to make record storage "appear" costly and therefore justify the subsequent destruction of 30 day old audio records. It is quite clear the City needs to re- visit this proposed amendment BEFORE it is brought to the council for a vote, otherwise be subject to scrutiny based on common sense. Here is the section in particular I refer to in my public comments: "The City has at least 54 hours of City Council, Board, Commission, or Committee meetings occur a month, which equates to about 1.7 GB of audio recordings. The 1.7 GB is deleted monthly. To store these recording for more than 30 days the City may purchase additional storage at an annual cost of $100 per 20 GB of storage. At a future City Council meeting, staff intends to bring a Resolution for adoption that will adopt the updated Schedule that will include a provision that: 1. Allows future amendments to the Schedule to be made with the approval of the City Clerk, and City Manager. 2. Amends future City Council Policies should revisions to the Schedule warrant changes to any City Council Policies. 3. The appropriate Department Directors, the City Clerk, and the City Attorney will have reviewed and recommended approval of the Schedule when this item returns at a future City Council meeting." Thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this newly created issue. Reply to: diherich @vahoo.com N April 22, 2014, City Council Agenda Item Comments The following comments on items on the Newport Beach City Council agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( iimmosher(a)vahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949- 548 -6229) Item SS3. Records Retention Schedules Based on the staff report posted in advance of the Study Session, this item (originally promised to "be brought before Council by the beginning of March ") will provide the public with a rare glimpse of at least a draft version of the City's privately copyrighted Records Retention Schedule, and present the City Council with a rather extensive set of redlined changes to it. Since the limited Discussion in the staff report focuses solely on retention of the audio recordings of meetings, the Council (and public) may be missing some of the context of this, including the many ways in which the City falls short of what might be expected of a "gold standard" City. From the public's perspective, the ability to freely and efficiently access City records, without imposing on City staff, is at least as important as physically retaining the records. In 2012 and much of 2013, City staff, particularly in the Planning Division, was making progress towards this goal, by providing publicly visible links on the City website to the recordings of a variety of meetings (which had always existed on the City's servers, but had not been publicly visible). At one point, these included, in addition to the City Council, the meetings of the Planning Commission, Zoning Administrator, Hearing Officer, the Land Use Element Amendment Advisory Committee and the Balboa Village Advisory Committee. Other public bodies, such as the Harbor and the Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commissions, were hopeful that the audio recordings of their meetings would be made visible as well, and Councilwoman Gardner had even suggested recording some Board and Commission meetings in video for occasional broadcast. Such recordings, whether audio or video, are desirable both because they provide a better and more complete record than written minutes (including the verbal explanation of PowerPoint slides, which are often retained as part of the agenda packet), but also because they can be posted immediately after the meeting, allowing those that cannot attend in person to know what happened without having to wait for the minutes to come out a month or more later. They also allow the minutes to shorter than they might otherwise need to be (a good example being the LUEAAC minutes, which provide almost no explanation of what was said, or by whom — and which are particularly ironic since they were all approved "as supplemented by the audio tape" even though City staff now proposes to destroy them, either pursuant to the current Records Retention Schedule or a future one). Much work remained to be done, including creating a coherent, comprehensive database of meeting minutes that could be computer searched (such exists, at the moment, only for the City Council, Planning Commission and Zoning Administrator) to determine if a topic had been discussed. But things seemed hopeful in terms of moving towards increased transparency an accessibility. However, starting in late November and early December, 2013, instead of new links appearing on the City website, the old ones began disappearing (even though that did not necessarily mean the actual recording had been deleted from its former location). By January, 2014, the April 22, 2014, Council agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 6 publicly visible links had disappeared to all but the last two years of recordings of the Planning Commission. All others were gone. And more recently, the essential searchable "Granicus" database of City Council meeting videos going back to 2005 (as best I can remember) had disappeared as well (formerly at http:// www .newr)ortbeachca.gov /index.asl)x ?page =701 a page that no longer exists), to be replaced by a less searchable and less well linked video database (only agendas, not minutes, can be searched and the user has to find the "hit" within the agenda on their own) going back, at least temporarily, only to May 2013, and not allowing the files to be downloaded in .MP3 or .MP4 format for off -line review. To view one of the pre -2013 videos, members of the public (who even know it is possible) have to now personally ask the City Clerk for a link to its location on the City servers. At least in my view, this is not progress, and it is not what one would expect of a "gold standard" City. More generally, the staff report glosses over the fact that prior to 2011, the City's Records Retention Schedule was controlled by, and publicly reviewed by, the City Council as would seem to be prudently required by state law (California Government Code Section 34090). Wittingly or unwittingly, in Section 3 of Resolution 2011 -18 the Council turned over future control of the schedule to City staff: "the City Clerk, City Manager, and City Attorney, amendments are hereby authorized to be made to the Records Retention Schedules without further action by the City Council of the City of Newport Beach." In other words, even though state law requires legislative approval of the destruction of records, presumably giving the public some confidence that their elected officials are in charge (in former times, lists of the exact documents proposed to be destroyed were explicitly brought before the Council for public approval before anything was done with them), in Newport Beach the City Council has given City staff carte blanche to decide what should be destroyed, and when. So under Resolution 2011 -18, bringing the proposed changes to the Council for public review is a courtesy, not a Council requirement. Moreover, even with Council consent, Government Code Section 34090 et seq. does not appear to allow the destruction of the originals of any records "less than two years old" (34090(d)). Although Section 54953.5.(b) in the Brown Act overrides this restriction for recordings of public meetings, none of the state laws allowing destruction of public records are commands to actually destroy them, and even if the latitude for charter cities is wider, it is difficult to understand why a "gold standard" City would allow such destruction. In addition, the City Clerk's implication that retention of audio (or video) recordings is economically burdensome because the "City may purchase additional storage at an annual cost of $100 per 20 GB of storage" is highly misleading. The going price for hard drive storage is currently about $0.04 /GB. At that rate, 20 GB of storage should cost the City about 80 cents (not $100), and that should be a one -time capital cost, not an annual one. Next, if one actually looks at the proposed Retention Schedule, aside from the obvious question of why the public should allow such a thing to be copyrighted by a private outside entity (and whether the "2003- 2006" copyright is still applicable) one has to wonder if anyone actually reads these things. The author seems to have some difficulty distinguishing between the concepts of "retention" and "disposition," apparently taking them to be synonyms. According to the final page, the column labeled "Active" defines only one thing: "How long the file remains in the April 22, 2014, Council agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 6 immediate office area." Some say things such as 1 year" or "Life of equipment," which make some sense (barring the state's 2 year requirement for retaining originals). Others say things like "Upon Completion" or "When No Longer Required," which do not. Taken literally, they would mean the documents should be kept in the office only when they have become unneeded. I assume the consultant meant to say something like "Until completed" or "Until no longer required "? Finally, I am not convinced the City Council is seeing, in the redlining, an accurate copy of the last Records Retention Schedule they approved in 2011. Of course, since it is copyrighted it does not exist on the City's servers (at least not at a location the public knows about), but I seem to recall checking it when the public links to audio recordings began disappearing, and noting with some relief that (and although it would not protect the LUEAAC recordings) the rule of being able to destroy audio recordings as soon as the minutes have been approved applied only to committees (Page CW -5 /Class CW -016, or its equivalent). My recollection is that at that time page CW -5 /class CW -017 for all Boards and Commissions (not just the Planning Commission) said 2 years. And I'm quite sure the Planning Commission rule (now on page PL- 4 /class PL -021) said 2 years — explaining, at least in my mind, why the publicly visible links to Planning Commission meetings less than 2 years old had been retained, while the older ones had disappeared. Yet the copy being presented to the City Council at the present Study Session implies the rule under the current Records Retention Schedule is to keep only for "30 days or after Minutes are approved (whichever is longer)." Either my recollection is wrong, or staff has unilaterally changed the policy prior to the presently proposed changes, as Resolution 2011 -18 gives them free reign to do. And I cannot close without highlighting the most extraordinary aspect of the current proposal, as detailed in the two numbered points on page 2 of the staff report. If I am understanding them correctly, City staff is alerting the Council that in the next Resolution, they intent to go beyond Resolution 2011 -18 by giving themselves the authority not only to change the schedule without Council review, but also to "correct" any City Council policies that contradict the rules they invent for themselves. Authorizing City staff to act in a way contrary to existing Council policy is a concept whose virtue I have yet to grasp.