SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria's office has returned just 45% of the public records requests it received in 2024.
Included in that figure is a records request filed by ABC 10News in April, seeking communications between Gloria and his staff in the weeks leading up to the announcement of the controversial 1,000-bed homeless shelter located at the edge of Little Italy in the Midtown area.
The mega-shelter remains a point of contention in the Midtown neighborhood several months after it was first proposed. The shelter, currently an empty warehouse at the corner of Kettner and Vine Streets, has drawn a wide range of concerns. Under the proposal, the City of San Diego would take on a 30-year lease for the space.
However, critics, including the City Attorney's office and the City's Independent Budget Analyst, said the lease does not protect the City's legal or financial interests.
It's a question neighbors have wondered from the day it was abruptly announced seven months ago: How did the lease agreement come together?
"This is all happening so fast," neighbor Ed Moore said outside the warehouse in May. "My friend called me, 'Ed, did you see this press conference? The mayor is right down at the bottom of the hill.' It just hit us like an anvil dropped from the sky."
Neighbor Max Dworkin felt the same way.
"I was surprised and shocked like everybody else," Dworkin said. "Transparency and involvement from the community should be a prerequisite for anything of this scale. Out of nowhere, out of the cloaks of darkness, there was an announcement that a miraculous solution was on the table."
Since April, ABC 10News has been trying to find out if there are any details about the agreement that the public doesn't know about. However, the Mayor's office hasn't released public records the City says it has identified.
Gloria, who won re-election a week ago, announced the plan to develop the shelter on April 4. On April 16, ABC 10News filed a public records request with the City of San Diego, which was assigned to Gloria's office. ABC 10News asked for all email exchanges sent to and from Gloria, including the words 'Kettner,' 'shelter,' and, or 'lease' from the two-week window of April 1 through April 15. ABC 10News also asked for Gloria's texts with his communications team during that time. What's in emails and text messages could give insight into how the mega shelter agreement came together out of the public eye.
Under the California Public Records Act, the City must determine within 10 days if the request qualifies as a public record. Then, the City has 14 days to release the documents. Within a month, a public records administration staffer told ABC 10News that the city did have records that matched what was asked for but needed time to consult with others and review the request. This is a typical response to a records request; however, the first response came in April.
11 times now, the City has given itself an extension to release the records it is legally required to share.
"If we're talking about a request for a fairly limited set of records across a limited time frame, then I find it difficult to imagine why a public agency would need 11 extensions," David Loy, the Legal Director of the First Amendment Coalition, said. The First Amendment Coalition defends free speech, freedom of the press, and the people's right to know.
"Documents delayed are documents denied," Loy added.
Open records are often the only way journalists can find out how things in government happen outside of a press release.
"Every time a public official or employee generates something in writing, digital or hard copy, that is related to public business, that is a public record," Loy said.
At the end of July, ABC 10News filed another public records request, seeking to know how many records requests the Mayor's office had received in 2024 and how many it had filled. Gloria's office had received 83 requests and filled just 26 of them, just over 31%.
A spokesperson for the Mayor's office says they've caught up a bit since then. Records voluntarily shared by Gloria's team in response to this story show that his office has filled 47 of 101 requests this year, 46.5%. That figure includes ABC10 News' unfilled request for the mega shelter communications.
When asked for comment, the spokesperson admitted that filling just 46.5% of records requests is not good enough.
In a statement, Communications Director Rachel Laing said, "While we are not satisfied with this and constantly seek to speed up the process, the delays in fulfilling requests are primarily a function of the volume of the responsive records. Some requests produce thousands of records across multiple departments that must be reviewed for confidential information. The City has tens of thousands of records requests at any given time and endeavors to produce those records as quickly as possible."
ABC 10News also asked the Mayor's office if there was a reason the request was not filled. The question was not answered.
Loy points out the consequences for the public in the unfilled requests.
"Whether this is the intent or not, these kinds of delays can sometimes effectively run out the clock on the election, or the vote, or the decision that needs to be made."
So, as the San Diego City Council debates whether to approve the massive project with taxpayer money, the records request sits. Hopefully, it will be filled before the shelter project is decided.
ABC 10News is due for a 12th records extension next Thursday.
