A nonprofit dedicated to government accountability has sued the City of Los Angeles over missing documents linked to former Council Member Tom LaBonge.
The First Amendment Coalition has been asking for records of LaBonge’s correspondence for quite some time now, but has gotten nowhere with their requests. That’s because the former councilman, who termed out in 2015 after fourteen years, left nothing behind when he vacated his post last summer.
It shocked LaBonge’s successor, David Ryu.
"This is the Councilmember's first time serving as an elected official, but there was an expectation that there would at least be some supporting documents for some very important issues in the district," said Estevan Montemayor, Councilman Ryu's communications director. Instead, it appears they were destroyed.
Over 100 boxes from LaBonge’s office were transported to the city’s records manager with notes saying they were to be burned, according to the Los Feliz Ledger. Thirty-five of them were recovered, but most were never located again.
LaBonge has denied any wrongdoing, instead placing blame on the absence of a concrete set of guidelines for files in the City of Los Angeles. One anonymous former staffer, however, has attributed the move to more nefarious purposes.
In its lawsuit, the First Amendment Coalition argues that the city has a duty to the public to ensure public records are kept and made available upon request. In the meantime, Ryu’s office has submitted a motion asking the city to create new protocols for elected official transitions so that nothing like this ever happens again.
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