LA Times Wonders: Why Does Mayor Bass Delete All Her Text Messages?

Not did, notice, but does. Is it best practice among American mayors to set your texts to auto-delete? Or only among mayors who have an allergy to transparency?

Maybe that would include all major-city mayors, come to think of it. However, the city of Los Angeles has good reason to investigate what Karen Bass knew about the wildfire danger and when she knew it — and for that matter, what Bass did or didn’t do about it. Too bad, though, since at least part of the official record has been wiped clean. With a cloth, one might say:

She and her office have said she was in constant communication during that period. But it’s impossible to know exactly what she was communicating, because her messages were not saved, according to a city lawyer.

“Her phone is set not to save text messages,” said the lawyer, David Michaelson.

Michaelson said that there is “no requirement that a city official or employee save text messages,” despite the fact that the city’s own document retention policies dictate that most records should be kept for at least two years.

Under state law, “any writing” related to the conduct of government is deemed a public record. On Jan. 10, The Times filed a public records request for all text messages sent or received by the mayor while she was in transit on Jan. 7 or Jan. 8 that mention fire response or her travel plans.

Michaelson claims that texts do not count under the city’s regulatory code that requires all writings to be retained for two years. He wrote the LA Times to claim a state supreme court decision and an AG opinion excludes texts as “fleeting thoughts and random bits of information” that need not be documented. But that was before LA wrote its code, and as another attorney points out, it has a more stringent standard than state law or the court decision required. If the city requires communications from government officials to be retained, the intent of that is not narrow. It’s to have a complete record of official actions and communications, not to give elected and appointed officials transparency-free options.

Perhaps more importantly, the argument is nonsense in the political context as well. What normal person sets their phones to auto-delete text messages? Until now, I’ve never even heard of that option outside of apps like Snapchat. Most people — and by “most,” I mean the population of human beings except for corruptocrats — want and need that history to remind themselves of previous communications and information. Not only do normal people keep their texts, they make sure that those transfer to new phones when the need to replace old phones arises.

Why wouldn’t a user want those retained? When they contain evidence of a crime or dereliction of duty. I’m hard pressed to come up with another reason. But even then, one would expect that the crook or the clown would just delete the specific texts that could be incriminating in nature. That, of course, could be more easily traceable, but the nature of texting and the value of the information within it would usually have people choosing their deletions more carefully.

So again … what does it say about Mayor Bass that she has her phone set to auto-delete all texts? And apparently set it to do so as soon as she took office?

It says that investigators may want to look more closely at Bass’ tenure at City Hall. What else did Bass want to hide from the records and voters that had her deleting texts during the first couple of years of her time in office? Something smells very fishy about Bass’ records avoidance, and it seems highly doubtful that it was entirely benign until Bass took a powder while the Palisades turned into a powder keg.