Author: PCC Admin

Will discuss how to protect private registry information on item A-1

AGENDA    REQUEST TO SPEAK    ATTEND REMOTELY

Can the information on the rent registry be protected from a public records request?  What if it can’t?  Should we even bother with it?  That’s the question people need to be asking next Monday.  Enforcement of rent control does not need a rent registry or an expensive bureaucracy.  It simply needs outreach – so tenants know who to call if a landlord is in breach of the ordinance.

If you don’t have time to speak, you can file an e-comment at the agenda item above, or e-mail your comments to public.comment@culvercity.org

City Attorney Heather Baker has also answered our questions about this issue – Per her answers, it is not possible to redact information deemed private, even at direction of Council. 

1. The attorney who published this website claims he obtained the rental registry information under the California Public Records Act, claiming any data the city owns must be publicly accessible.  He says he will continue to get up to date information by invoking this act.  Do you agree with this?  How do rent records compare with sales tax records – which, to our understanding, are not publicly accessible?

Based on research and evaluation, including the various privacy interests at play, the City Attorney’s Office determined certain information contained in the City’s rental registry records was required to be disclosed under the Public Records Act (PRA) and not covered by any PRA exemptions.

2. Per Google doxing standards, as well as the California Electronic Cyber Harassment Law (PC 653.2), aggregating publicly available data in an easily accessible format can be considered doxing, given proper context.  In your opinion, do either of these standards apply here?  Does the city have any legal recourse to stop this website from being published in this manner?

Our Office has not reviewed this issue.  Notwithstanding, I cannot provide you with legal advice, and any opinion we would have in this regard would be subject to the attorney-client privilege. 

3. Do you think making tenant addresses and rents accessible to the public violates the privacy rights of tenants?  How about revealing landlord names and property addresses?  Namely considering many of these landlords are owner-occupiers, and this is also their home address?

All of these factors were taken into consideration when determining whether a PRA exemption would apply to the City’s rental registry records.  As mentioned above, after carefully considering these factors, it was determined that certain information contained in the records was required to be disclosed under the PRA. 

4. If the city has no legal recourse against this attorney’s website, is there a way to rewrite the rent control ordinance to protect these records from future public records requests, while ensuring landlord accountability on rents?Assuming there is a way – would you support editing the ordinance to protect information submitted to the registry?  If so, what would you protect, and what would you allow public access?  If not, what alternatives do you see to protect this information? 

The Culver City Municipal Code can be amended at any time upon a majority vote of the City Council.  City staff and the City Attorney’s Office are unable to respond to the remainder of these questions, as we receive our direction from the City Council. 

When Culver City passed rent control in 2019, they created a rent registry which would be public record. Attorney Stephen Jones, who serves on the Planning Commission, invoked the California Public Records Act to pull all tenant information from the rent registry. He then aggregated it into an easily accessible format at ccrentals.org.

In response, Council has agendized whether to make this registry protected private information at their July 10th meeting. They’ve also temporarily taken down their registry portal, which allowed anyone to look up rents as well.

We’ll be posting regular updates about the upcoming meeting, and how to make your voice heard, on this page. We did ask councilmembers on their thoughts about the issue. However, the city attorney advised us that they will not be answering, as this could result in a Brown Act violation.

We still encourage everyone to write or call them yourself and tell them your feelings on this issue. You can find their email and phone number here.

We consider this website to be a grave violation of tenants’ privacy rights. We don’t believe anybody expected their rent to become public knowledge. This results in any number of negative consequences:

• Because tenant rent is now public information, it will make it easier for people to determine their income.
• This information can be used by others in legal proceedings. Generally, knowing that someone has to make 2.5x the average monthly rent, you can estimate the monthly income of each home. This can be used in lawsuits including child and spousal support. Judges are known to modify and/or make these calculations for support just based on someone’s living expenses.
• This could also be used by tax agents to verify income tax statements.
• Addresses with the highest rents are also now common knowledge – making an easy database for criminals to target.

There are many ways this does not end well.