Freelance Journalist Challenges Workings of Municipal Paparazzi Panelists

• City Attorney Says ‘Group of Experts’ Is Not Covered by Open Meeting or Public Access Laws

BY ANNE SOBLE

A local freelance journalist is challenging the makeup and procedures of a City of Malibu policy process charged with the task of possibly drafting an ordinance to control what municipal officials perceive as inappropriate and unsafe behavior by paparazzi in the community.
Hans Laetz, who has spent three decades in news management, primarily in the broadcast arena, submits articles to a broad cross-section of area publications, including the Malibu Surfside News. He is not representing any of these publications in his clash with City Hall.
Laetz asserts that a municipal paparazzi panel has met twice in closed session, actions he contends violate state governmental transparency legislation, including the Brown Act, the state open meeting law. He indicates that the group has produced a draft ordinance, a copy of which he has requested from the city.
Laetz made these points in an email exchange with Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich. He has distributed copies of the most recent emails on Monday to print and broadcast media, as well as journalism organizations.
In one of the emails, Laetz wrote, “California Government Code § 54952 (b) requires advance agendas, public documents and open meetings for “a commission, committee, board, or other body of a local agency, whether permanent or temporary, decision-making or advisory, created by charter, ordinance, resolution, or formal action of a legislative body.”
He added, “The committee is by any reading a temporary advisory body created by formal action of the city council. Calling it ‘independent’ does not make it so. This task force is an official City of Malibu advisory panel, created and charged by a city council act, and is without doubt under the Brown and Unruh acts.”
However, City Attorney Christi Hogin responded on Tuesday that the meetings in question are not a violation of the Brown Act, or any other state mandate, because even though the paparazzi panel is referred to as a committee in public discusssion, no committee was technically formed. Hogin said that the meetings involve a group of “experts” assembled by the mayor that does not involve staff time.
In short, it would appear that this non-committee is no different than any other bunch of people sitting around a kitchen table who decide to develop public policy options, which, as an aside, led to the term “kitchen cabinet” to reflect undue unofficial political influence.
Yet Conley Ulich uses the term “committee” when discussing the matter with Laetz in emails and when talking to The News, in addition to referring to “committee membership.” And, in a separate email to Laetz, Councilmember Sharon Barovsky referred to the group as an “ad hoc committee.”
As for Laetz’s assertion of the existence of a draft ordinance, the mayor said the meetings have produced what she describes as “suggestions” and she indicates she has not gone through all of them. She said one of the approaches “on the table” is the Malibu Surfside News editorial position that no additional legislation is required.
Conley Ulich added that the group that has met so far consists of several attorneys but that is not the “committee’s final membership.” She indicated there is a question of whether the American Civil Liberties Union, originally touted as a participant, is going to take part in the non-committee.
Because the names of the participants in the panel headed by Pepperdine Law School Dean Kenneth Starr have not been made public, this has earned the group the sobriquet the “Starr Chamber” among journalists who question the need for additional legislation beyond existing state paparazzi laws and are concerned Starr might weaken local First Amendment rights.
Laetz told The News that a red flag is raised by Starr’s role in the Alaska student banner case that resulted in U.S. Supreme Court restriction of student free speech rights that were affirmed by the high court 39 years earlier.
That case also prompted conflict of interest discussions concerning Starr’s representation and the justices on the Supreme Court who are paid by Pepperdine to take part in university seminars.
Laetz is lobbying the mayor for membership in the so-called “group of experts,” asserting that, as a freelancer, he can bring this specialized perspective to issues related to the paparazzi, the majority of whom are also uncredentialed freelancers.
In his pitch for panel membership, Laetz writes, “Although I do not have the J.D. [yet] or pedigree of Dean Starr...I am a third year law student [at the Ventura College of Law] who will specialize in First Amendment law [and] feel I have more than a passing understanding of First Amendment and criminal law and precedent.”
Laetz and Conley Ulich were slated to meet on the issues he is raising at City Hall on Friday.