LA Mayor Bass Texts Suit Tees Up Retention Question for Appeal

A challenge over Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s deletion of text messages at the start of the city’s January wildfire disaster is poised for appeal, after a judge found the Los Angeles Times’ destruction of records allegations to be too broad.

Whether California public records law inherently requires various types of electronic communications to be retained for a certain period of time is a “case of first impression” that an appeals court should decide, said attorney Kelly Aviles for the newspaper during the Wednesday hearing. The public and agencies need clarity on what kinds of records must be preserved, ...