Laguna Hills Watch Dog Special Edition - August 2, 2010

Seeking Truth in City Records? Give it your best Shot!

The Laguna Hills Watch Dog has recently received many requests for tips on how to obtain information from the City of Laguna Hills. This is an excellent question because successfully obtaining accurate information from a city is a key to learning what city government is actually doing. Problems related to the process of requesting records are frequently encountered by us and constantly encountered by News Reporters.

Laguna Hills Citizens may obtain copies of city records through the City Clerk, Peggy Johns. The form needed to request city records can be downloaded from the city web site at www.ci.laguna-hills.ca.us and can obtained at city hall. This form needs to be filled out and given to the city clerk with each records' request. Within 10 days of the city's receipt of your records' request you should receive a response from the city, but not necessarily the information you requested. It is part of the job of the City Clerk to assist citizens to find the information they need, so if you don't know, very specifically, how to word your request you may ask the city clerk to "help you" word your request correctly to obtain the specific information you want. Peggy Johns has been helpful to us. Simple requests are usually not problematic as long as the information you are requesting exists in city records, is available to the public and your request is clearly worded and legible.

The problems become seriously complex when requesting something such as "all forms of compensation for elected officials and employees of the City of Laguna Hills". This is similar to the request that was made by Laguna Hills Candidate for City Council Barbara Kogerman. There are too many scattered pieces, in the city's convoluted puzzle of record keeping, for the city to efficiently respond to a request like this. In the response Barbara Kogerman received she was warned, that the information she requested, "required over 100 hours of staff time to assemble (the estimated value which is at least $5000). While we will certainly continue to comply with the Public Records Act and to be as helpful as we can reasonably be, you should not have the expectation that future public record requests will be handled in a similar fashion."

So, what you often have to do, is request each piece of the puzzle separately and fit them together yourself. For example, I have a copy of an old City of Laguna Hills Resolution No. 2007-06-12-2 that includes general information such as a table of city staff positions with monthly & hourly salary ranges. It also includes a lot of other good general information but it does not include specific information such as current salaries, amounts of bonuses and raises, costs of cars, current car allowances, amounts for auto insurance, maintenance, repairs and gasoline, etc. for each staff person who receives these, etc. Individual items such as car purchases are not itemized in the city budget, so, you have to request copies of invoices for cars purchased and ask for the name of the person who would be the primary user of each car. Another glitch was in our requests for medical benefits records we never received anything that tells us if medical benefits for city council members and staff are for life or payable only during their terms of office or employment.

Another Resolution No. 2008-12-09-7 states the city manager "in closed session on Nov. 25, 2008" was awarded his maximum performance bonus for calendar year 2008, and 10 additional paid vacation days for the year 2009, but does not state the specific dollar amount of the bonus he was awarded, so you'd need to request the specific amount separately and if that's not available you'd need to request the City Manager's Original Employment Agreement and all updates to it to try to figure out the amount yourself.

The examples above illustrate ways in which a city can effectively hide specific information from citizens. The Laguna Hills Watch Dog found the 1st evidence of the 2009 purchase of the $60,000 car ($50,000 + $10,000 city owned trade in car) for the City Manager buried in the Warrant Register. The Consent Calendar for the Laguna Hills City Council Meeting of 8-25-09 included a Warrant Register for $2,401,918.52. This amount included the purchase of a $50,000 Toyota from Tustin Toyota in July 2009 with no additional information. Unless a council member pulls an item from the Consent Calendar it is passed with a large number of other items in the Consent Calendar and goes unnoticed. That is what happened with this car that was also not itemized in the city budget.

You can now see some of the difficulties encountered in requesting information, the need for more transparency and the need for the city to organize information so that it is available and understandable for citizens. Sometimes for a request such as "all forms of compensation for elected officials and employees of the City of Laguna Hills", you may receive an answer stating that multiple documents each containing some of the information you requested will be made available for you at city hall so you can schedule a time to review the documents, sort out what you want and request copies of documents you need. There is a minor copy fee.

If you click on "Laguna Hills response" in the information for the online News Story -
http://taxdollars.freedomblogging.com/2010/05/17/controversial-city-comp-report-now-online/57357/ Controversial city manager compensation you will see raw data given to Barbara Kogerman by the City of Laguna Hills. You can add the totals from the information yourself including the $60,000 for the car that the city cries foul about Ms. Kogerman including in the Total Compensation for the City Manager for 2009. Yet, if you look at the page of raw data for the Assistant City Manager, Don White, you will see that the city counted the cost of a car for him, $31,744.30 under FY2004/05. If you add the numbers in that raw data from the city you will get a Total Compensation of $320,682.52 for the Assistant City Manager. If you then look at the chart in the OC Register Watchdog story at: http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/05/17/top-city-manager-compensation-460809-report-says/57287/ you will see that only 4 "City Managers" in Orange County receive total compensations that are more than the Assistant City Manager of Laguna Hills. Those 4 are City Managers of Laguna Hills, Irvine, Santa Ana, and Newport Beach.

Jean Bland, Laguna Hills Watch Dog

*For more on this subject and the controversy regarding Total Compensation paid to City Officials and City Employees recent News Stories, 2 videos from Fox News and one audio interview from KFI Radio are listed below:

California's city officials scramble to limit damage from Bell scandal
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bell-impact-20100729,0,6243085.story
July 29 2010 - City managers will gather in Sacramento on Thursday to discuss damage control (includes quotes from Laguna Hills City Manager- Bruce Channing)

Video: Big Salaries for City Managers - Eric Bolling of Fox News Channel interviews Laguna Hills City Council Candidate Barbara Kogerman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHvz1ZcEv68&feature=youtube_gdata

Money Rocks - Video: Eric Bolling of Fox Business News interviews Senator Darrell Steinberg and Laguna Hills City Council Candidate Barbara Kogerman.
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4298184/study-unveils-bell-ca-salary-rip-off/

KFI Radio's Bill Carroll Interviews Laguna Hills City Council Candidate Barbara Kogerman - Go to www.kfiam640.com/ then click on the following: click on "On Air - Bill Carroll" - click on "Carrol on Demand - Under Bill Carroll click on More?Download Audio" - click on "Bell Citizens Fight Back 12P 7/27 Citizens of Bell made their voice heard last night! Play, Download, Share" - and finally click on "Play"
*You have to listen for a few minutes before the Barbara Kogerman interview starts and it continues for about 20 minutes.

City Managers Consider Changes In Wake Of Bell Scandal
http://www.kcra.com/r/24445290/detail.html