Pulling Back the Curtain

2/21/2025

I thought I should share my recent drama with the City of Torrance. The City Clerk is threatening legal action against me for a mistake made solely by her office. Here is the story of my glimpse behind the curtain.

Errors exposed

As you probably know, I have for years been analyzing data about the Torrance Airport and those who complain about it. The $284,000 Casper monitoring system accepts airport complaints and provides the public with data about the number of complaints and the number of persons complaining. As this graphic shows, there was a huge spike (400%) in the number of people making complaints in December of 2024 as reported by that system. There was also an increase in the number of complaints that month (38%). I wondered what was the cause.

As I have done for years, I submitted a request through the California Public Records Act (CPRA) for the December log of complaint data, which I received on 1/13/2025. I also submitted a request for the October and November logs which I received on 2./5/2025. Both sets of log data contained the last name of the person making each complaint. This allowed me to make a comparison between the Casper data presented to the public and the actual log data.

Clearly, it is possible that complaints may be made by several people with the same last name. I "googled" the name "Gates" and came up with more than 30 in Torrance. In fact, there were some complaints attributed to the name "Gates" on the report, but I have no idea who that individual is--certainly not me. For the analysis, I assumed that each last name on the log represented one individual. The complainant's name is a required data item to make a complaint through the Casper system, but there is no check to see if any of the required data is accurate. One may enter anything as a name.

Valuable information revealed

First, I looked at the Logs for December and counted the number of last names (complainants) that it contained and compared it to what the Casper monitoring system reported to the public. The log contained 13 names, but Casper reported 114! THIS IS A HUGE ERROR! The number of complaints reported by Casper agreed with the logs.

Next, I looked across all three months to see what information could be learned. I found:.

All of this new information is very valuable for the public to know, but it would be impossible to reveal without the last name on each complaint.

My report

The Airport Commission advises City Council on matters concerning the Torrance Airport in the areas of development of airport facilities, aeronautical leases of airport land, airport special events and airport noise. To do so, the Commission must have transparent and accurate reports on the subject. They need to know:

  1. who is complaining,
  2. what are they complaining about,
  3. where are the complaints coming from, and
  4. what does this information mean?

Over the years, the Airport Commission members have complained that the Quarterly Noise Abatement Reports produced by the Community Development Department were useless and obscured data needed by the Commission and the public. The Commission has made several requests for better reports--reports that would provide information they needed to give their best advice to the Council. Since the Community Development Department was scheduled to present their 4th Quarter Noise Abatement Report at the January 13 Commission meeting, this seemed to be an opportune time to recommend some changes to the report and demonstrate the valuable information that analyzing the logs with last names could provide the Commission. I recommended addition of two graphics that specifically answered questions #1, #3 and #4. My report to the Commission was shared with the public by City Staff as Supplemental Material. I also published an Airport Report that reviewed my recommendations.

The threat

On 2/18/2025, I received a letter from the Torrance City Clerk stating that the inclusion of last names on their response to my CPRA request was their mistake, and

  1. demanded return of the "documents" I had received,
  2. claimed that the people filing complaints had been promised "confidentiality,"
  3. requested that I "remove any online posts or digital platforms where this information has been published,"
  4. emanded that I cease any further distributions or sharing of the names.

She threatened to "request that the City Council consider all available legal options to enforce the rights of the City" if I failed to comply by 2/21/2025.

I replied:

  1. The "documents" were copies of Excel files sent to me via e-mail. I was not sure what "returning the documents" meant in that case. Since she was threatening legal action, these "documents" would be key evidence and I must retain them.
  2. She would not explain how this promise of confidentiality had been conferred. There are no statements on the Casper system complaint submission web pages promising confidentiality of any of the required data items. Furthermore, it is impossible to identify a specific individual in Torrance from just a last name.
  3. I had accepted in good faith that the response to a CPRA request was public information and that it was legally provided. I had relied on that information; I had written and published my report as is my right under the First Amendment. I offered to help her solve her problem as best as I could, but I expected to be paid for my time and expenses. She refused.
  4. This was the only demand that I could reasonably agree to--even if it violated the First Amendment. I agreed.

I understand that records requested under CPRA must be released, but there are some specific exceptions, such as documents covered by attorney/client privilege. There is no such exception for airport complaints or last names of those making the complaints. It is also generally understood that information released under CPRA is public information.

There is a Public Interest Exemption, which allows an agency to justify withholding any record by demonstrating that the public interest served by withholding the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record. The City Clerk has only asserted this is true, without any proof. As noted above, the use of last names in the analysis clearly reveals information of interest to the public that would be unavailable without it.

So, here I sit on the deadline date, 2/21/2025, wondering how my city can justify taking legal action and forcing me to spend my time and money to fix an error that the city, alone, created. At this point in time, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to correct the City's error as demanded by the City Clerk and City Attorney.