LA Officials Used Disappearing Chats During Palisades Fire, Which Auto-Deleted Evidence

The Marxist Mayor of L.A. and her Administration do not want the public to know how they destroyed the Pacific Palisades.  So, they operate in secret.  And been doing this for years.

“During discovery in our case, we uncovered a 14-year-old practice of LA: its officials have been using disappearing Google Chats for 1-on-1 and group direct messaging to conduct the City’s business but not saving them. Years ago, the City’s technology employees set up a Google Chat application that allowed the City’s 26,000 email users to direct message each other (and third parties too) about City matters, and these direct message chats were purposely configured by the City to disappear from their Google Workspace accounts within 24 hours and never saved as records.

We all know that email and direct messaging are used interchangeably to conduct business in this digital world. Google itself put out documentation as early as 2005 observing that it put chat discussions right in its Gmail accounts so all of these communications would be gathered in one place, and users could see the history of their emails/chats as their work unfolded on their screens. No rational person would contend that chats are not business records like emails.”

As we all knew, Los Angeles is run in secret.

LA Officials Used Disappearing Chats During Palisades Fire, Which Auto-Deleted Evidence

Mark Kenyon , City Watch LA,  1/27/25    https://www.citywatchla.com/los-angeles/30267-la-officials-used-disappearing-chats-during-palisades-fire-which-auto-deleted-evidence

GUEST COMMENTARY – Two weeks ago, we all watched in horror as a fierce wildfire swept through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of LA leaving a path a destruction and death hard for any of us to comprehend. While our first responders fought valiantly, almost immediately, there were questions about the adequacy of the preparation and response by those in charge of emergency planning at City Hall. Suddenly, my Mount Washington community’s lawsuit, from the opposite side of LA, has become relevant to those who suffered losses in the Palisades Fire.

Our fellow Angelenos across town should know how the City’s actions prioritized the “benefits” of City officials having a disappearing chat communication channel for themselves over a communication channel more useful to protect their public safety. And this City Hall secret remained in place at least until our attorney sent a pre-litigation letter to the Mayor and City Council last November, long before the fires, telling them we would ask the judge to add a new cause of action seeking a court order to end the secret chat communicating.

During discovery in our case, we uncovered a 14-year-old practice of LA: its officials have been using disappearing Google Chats for 1-on-1 and group direct messaging to conduct the City’s business but not saving them. Years ago, the City’s technology employees set up a Google Chat application that allowed the City’s 26,000 email users to direct message each other (and third parties too) about City matters, and these direct message chats were purposely configured by the City to disappear from their Google Workspace accounts within 24 hours and never saved as records.

We all know that email and direct messaging are used interchangeably to conduct business in this digital world. Google itself put out documentation as early as 2005 observing that it put chat discussions right in its Gmail accounts so all of these communications would be gathered in one place, and users could see the history of their emails/chats as their work unfolded on their screens. No rational person would contend that chats are not business records like emails.

We obtained City memos and a screenshot of the City Google administrator’s control panel during the Eric Garcetti administration. It showed Google’s control panel for Direct Messaging chats with Chat History globally turned “OFF”, and preventing anyone in the City from turning these types of chats “ON” to save them in their accounts, or archive them to respond to requests to produce records. Here is a 2019 era shot of the City’s control panel for Google Hangouts (prior name of Google Chat) when Mr. Garcetti was Mayor. 

At that time, in the 2014-2020 time period, the Garcetti administration had to make a critical decision: Should it (a) turn Google’s direct message chat history “ON” so City employees would have the benefit of seeing a running history of their chats (and those chat conversations would be retrievable to respond to records and litigation discovery requests), OR (b) should the City’s decision makers direct that chat history for these communications be turned “OFF” to create a secret “off the record” communication system where everyone from Mayor Garcetti down to City staff would never have to be accountable for the matters they discussed on this part of the City’s system? Given the recent corruption scandals at City Hall, it is not hard to guess which way the City chose to go.

Actually, the City only had one legal path before it but it chose rather to stray into records destruction. While private business might have no duty to save chats, a public agency like the City of LA is required by state law to retain records of City business for a minimum of two years, and as the City is in a constant state of being sued on all kinds of grounds, the City’s attorneys have a legal and ethical responsibility to assure that all records are preserved as evidence for a legal standard known as “reasonably foreseeable litigation.”

On Tuesday, January 14, 2025, one week after the Palisades fire burned down thousands of structures, the City’s Information Technology Agency issued a memo to all City email users informing them that starting that day going forward, the City had turned “ON” Google’s Chat History option and only thereafter those chats would be saved in everyone’s Google account and the chats would be archived indefinitely. The memo also said that chats before January 14 would remain destroyed.

The LA Times reported that the General Manager of the Information Technology Agency, Ted Ross, contended that “preserving the messages will help employees look back on the online dialogues they had during the fires.” But how can that be true when the fires burned through Palisades January 7-8, and Ross’s employees did not turn Chat History “ON” until January 14? The City closed that door after Palisades was in ruins.

Then Mr. Ross was quoted about a different Google Chat application: threaded Google Chat Spaces (chats organized by topic threads). The Times quoted Mr. Ross as saying: “This can be a useful feature for city of Los Angeles employees using Google Workspace to assist with emergency response activities since they can review previous messages in a threaded discussion.” But Google Chat Spaces threaded discussions have always had their Chat history turned “ON,” available for viewing in user accounts, and archived.

Why were Mr. Ross’s comments to the LA Times conflating the Google Chats Direct Messaging (which have been destroyed by the City on a daily basis since the Garcetti administration) with threaded Google Chat Spaces (that were saved and already in City user Gmail accounts)? This answer is evasion of City accountability.

In the days leading up to the Palisades fire, City officials had to be chatting about the National Weather Services’ red flag warning of a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” – a rarely ever issued warning. They had to be chatting about fire readiness issues in many departments. And when the fire broke out, those Google Direct Messages were likely flying everywhere in the City, including between Mayor Bass (who was out of town) and her staff.

But a decision, made long ago, came home to roost as the flames roared: those City official chats were automatically deleted within 24 hours. They were not available “to assist with emergency response activities” as Mr. Ross told the LA Times because they were almost immediately destroyed. Yes, those Direct Messaging Chat Histories on everyone’s screens might have been critical in coordinating City actions to protect public safety but they were not saved because City Hall loved its secret communications channel where no one had to be accountable for what they said and did in those chats.

Our Mount Washington lawsuit challenged an over-dense house project and City practices to densify our hillside community in ways that made it less safe. In 2021, we raised serious concerns about emergency vehicle access dangers on a 20-foot wide, steep, curvy hillside street in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. The City Council blithely approved at least eight new construction projects along a two-block stretch of this roadway, including the challenged one, with not much more than a prayer it would be OK.

It is ironic that a lawsuit raising fire safety issues would uncover City Hall’s dirty secret chat channel just before a devastating fire. More discovery is urgently needed to hold the City accountable for what it has done. Visit our website to learn more or, if you can, donate to help cover expenses to get to the bottom of this outrageous scheme to routinely destroy evidence the City knew would be relevant in all kinds of litigation it often faced.  Donations qualify for tax deduction depending on your circumstances.

(Mark Kenyon, a 40-year resident of Los Angeles, has dedicated much of his life to land use, housing, and environmental issues. He served as the Executive Director of North East Trees for over a decade before retiring last year. Reach him and the Crane Boulevard Safety Coalition at [email protected])