From the small public records request grows an Ethics Commission matter reaching the top of the permanent power-chain of folks running San Francisco's City Hall.
In early January, I asked longtime mayoral chief of staff Steve Kawa for two-weeks worth of his emails and calendar.
In the spring, city attorney Dennis Herrera officially opined that since Kawa had destroyed his calendar, in keeping with his policy of deleting this public record and no record existed, there was no violation.
Herrera had previously blessed Kawa blithely deleting his calendar every two weeks, ostensibly to better organize his City Hall computer. So, the City's vice mayor is regularly erasing public files, the supposed government sunshine watchdog, more like Lapdog Herrera, approves of it and my complaint is now before the Ethics Commission.
The matter should have been on the August ethics agenda but Kawa informed the commission in late July that he would be out of town the fourth Monday of the month, when they regularly meet, and he needed more time to consult with Herrera, he was granted a continuance.
Then the commission opted to cancel August's meeting and here we are, ready for the commissioners this Monday, September 26th, to consider finding Kawa in violation of open government laws.
Given the months of obstruction and ridiculous delays and opinions from Kawa and Herrera, echoes of Donald Trump's wily ways, I won't be surprised if Kawa has a headache and fails to show up. After all, the first presidential debate is happening at the same time.
Stay tuned. This open government story isn't over yet!
Good luck with this Michael! Thanks for fighting for sunshine.
ReplyDelete