The Dangerous Watchdog Registry: Targeting ‘Voyeurs’

You've all heard the back and forth regarding "PBID" and the Brown Act: I say the Act was violated, and provided the city attorney with 8 examples of defects in the formation process, each of which ought to give pause to our elected officials. (pdf 1, above); the city attorney, who doesn't dispute one even factual assertion, states that the meetings were never subject to the Act in the first place, and my concerns are thus without merit." (pdf 2)

I'll rebut Glenn's analysis in a future post. For now it is important to note that if his position survives, the following becomes sanctioned practice in the City of La Mesa:

1. City staff and elected officials can orchestrate and participate in secret meetings to raise your taxes (or "assessments") without worry about agenda requirements or indeed notice of any kind. They could hand out and then carefully collect "confidential" documents while maintaining the ability to falsely deny "requiring" financial commitments from Village stakeholders over and above state PBID law—misleading committee members in the process and corrupting the process. (pdf 3)

2. The city can cherry pick attendees to achieve the desired result, and can turn away affected citizens who have no means of redress. (pdf 4)

3. Collective briefings and important decisions taken out of the public eye are acceptable as long as the end product can be plausibly advertised as "designed by committee", even if city staff and the project engineer must gin up acquiescence by "leading the horse to water." (pdf 5)

4. Can bind the actions of future committees, supposedly open to public scrutiny, hollowing out public participation with sham procedures (video to come).

Additionally, the city can hold important meetings outside the district, far from prying eyes--even going so far as to hold them on federal holidays (), engage in serial meetings behind the scenes to exclude critics from the process (, , ), and coordinate behind the scenes efforts with the Mayor and city staff in pursuit of PBID ().

This is about far more than PBID, though. Glenn's reasoning applies to any similarly situated committee in the entire city. Does staff want an MFID (multifamily improvement district) in your neighborhood? Nothing you can do if you don't even know about it. Somebody to tax you for fancy new lighting and solar powered toilets? Sorry, pal.

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We're lucky that our councilmembers have expressed strong support for transparency and open government generally. But we shouldn't have to rely on the promises of individuals—our rights aren't subject to whim. They've been enshrined in California law for decades, but the battle to vindicate them is eternal.

Here's what happens when government officials (and their paid consultants) don't respect public participation:

I've been creating a video archive of the committee meetings since the public unveiling of PBID, building a record for review if it becomes necessary. While my actions have been derided in some quarters as "hovering menacingly" over the committee (http://www.lamesatoday.com/profiles/blogs/on-la-mesa), there's been one salutary effect to acting as one of Ed Henning's so-called "watchdogs"—we've forced the commttee to give more than lip service to the formalities of process.  (pdf 6)

As you know, somebody had the brainstrorm to start taping me. Let that sink in for a second—this wasn't about recording the proceedings. It wasn't even about capturing general audience participation. It was, pure and simple, the ostentatious monitoring of a citizen in what was then still hailed as an open process. One camera, aimed at one person—a critic—in what I can only assume to be an attempt to stifle dissent.

Why do I think this? Let's go to the emails!

Ed Henning (the traveling PBID consultant that the city hired with our meter money without even requiring E&O) to the city staffer tasked with dragging PBID over the finish line:

March 11, 2011, 11:51AM

"...I have a suggestion - why doesn't everyone on the Committee bring their video cams to next meeting and film the voyeur?

Ed"

Naturally, this city employee rebuked Mr. Henning and explained the chilling effect such an action might have, right? Uhh...

March 11, 2011, 12:24PM

"Well, which one though. There's the guy from All Things Bright & British or, as we now call him for short, the BBC. And then there's the reporter from La Mesa Patch who also brings a video camera, in addition to his still camera. I think it's a great idea, though."

It would be easy to dismiss this as armchair tough guy talk, had the camera not been trained on me at the very next meeting. () Why was it done? Tough to say. But I'm not surprised to find these emails. Glenn's opinion letter no doubt has more than a few people breathing easier.

Hoping to get to the bottom of this, I sought out Mr. Henning, copying Glenn and the full Council every step of the way. I've uploaded our exchange above, but if you've read this far you no doubt can't wait:

Hi Ed,

Bill Jaynes here.

I have some questions about an email exchange you had with Chris Gonzales in your capacity as consultant for the City of La Mesa on the PBID.

As you will recall, I have chosen to create a video record of the purportedly open PBID meetings, availing myself of my rights under California's Brown Act and sunshine laws generally, as well as my rights under the California and US Constitution. On March 11, 2011 you wrote to Chris as follows: "I have a suggestion — why doesn't everyone on the Committee bring their video cams to the next meeting and film the voyeur."

Chris responds, "I think its a great idea...", but he doesn't know who you are calling the voyeur, me or Ken Stone—a reporter for the Patch.

1. Since you initiated the reference to voyeurism, a deviant sexual behavior that some jurisdictions consider punishable by criminal sanction, may I ask whether you were referring to Ken or me as "the voyeur"?

2. You will also recall that cameras were in fact brought in to film me exercising my rights. Did you offer your suggestion to anyone else on the committee or only to the aforementioned employee of the City of La Mesa? Are you familiar with the term "chilling effect"?

I am also attaching an email you wrote to Chris on October 7, 2011. In it you state that you will be conducting PBID business with Chris on his personal email account. You may be aware that I have sent in the 1st of my Public Records Act requests to the City of La Mesa, in which I asked for certain information relating to official city email accounts. I am drafting my next at present. Will you preserve any and all email exchanges you have had regarding the PBID, the Streetscape Project or other business before the City of La Mesa, any of its sub-units, commissions, committees or other related entity or member of such entity while I determine whether City business conducted on personal accounts is subject to the PRA?

Since these emails involve a City employee and a paid consultant to the City of La Mesa, I am also copying City Attorney Glenn Sabine for his determination as to whether the PRA covers this situation and how he thinks I should proceed under the circumstances, as well as to the full Council, which retains ultimate authority over "matters PBID."

Sincerely,

Bill Jaynes"

And Mr. Henning's response:

"Hi Bill - good to hear from you. Regarding your question - my comment was actually intended to mean "the audience" - no specific individual. I thought the term was one of those singular/plural french expressions. I also had no idea it had such salacious origins until I looked it up - I only knew it in a much milder context which merely meant to diligently watch or film someone or something - regardless of the content or subject matter.  

At that point in the process, I don't believe I even knew who anyone was in the audience - it just seemed novel that what I perceived to be "everyone" in the audience had a camera or some device pointed at the Committee. That was new to me in that type of setting. My comment was linked to my memory of the image on TV after a baseball or football championship when all the players have their cameras pointed at the observing crowds who all have their cameras pointed at the players. A Mobius (film) strip, if you will. It also reminded me of a cartoon I once saw depicting the college classroom of the future which showed a tape recorder on the front desk playing the Professor's lecture and then panning out to the classroom where there were a room full of smaller recorders on every desk recording the pre-recorded lecture - with not a single person in the classroom.  

As far as sending PBID related emails to Chris Gonzales at a secondary email address, I believe that may have occurred once or twice when we were working on a Monday deadline where I offered progress updates. In such emails, I also would have cc'd his City email address as well - so these would be available with the other stack of materials made available for your review.  

For what it's worth, I did appreciate our exchange of comments and ideas throughout the PBID process. I found myself defending many of the comments you offered along the way. That doesn't mean I always agreed, but rather defended your right to comment  and for me/us to take the comments and suggestions into consideration.  

You must be fairly pre-occupied with all the recent "Royal" movies around the circuit - The Queen, The King's Speech and now the new Thatcher movie. Also the recent adaptation of the Prime Suspect series and on a lighter note - Ricky Gervais' "An Idiot Abroad" on the Science Channel every Saturday night.  

Bill, I'll let you decide if you want to forward this to the City Attorney or not. I don't see any reason to.   Take care.  

Ed"

I asked Glenn how this impacted my complaint, but he never replied. I guess that he decided there was no point given his belief that California law didn't protect us here anyway. I still disagree, but we'll find out when PBID resufaces at tomorrow's Council meeting whether the word of honor of our elected officials—that La Mesa is committed to open, transparent, and inclusive government process—is protection enough in the absence of "controlling authority." Maybe 60 years of sunshine laws have been perfectly unnecessary. Maybe you have nothing to worry about.

Maybe this whole mess will go away. Maybe not.