Going the Extra Miles to Keep Tabs on Government

Generations of civic do-gooders, gadflies and investigative reporters have sifted through millions of property and business records in the Los Angeles County Hall of Records.

Working at bare tables in an uncomfortable room in the downtown Civic Center building, they have mined the records for facts, one of the most powerful weapons in the fight against government excess.

What the Hall of Records lacked in comfort, it made up for in location. Outraged homeowners, fighting a toxic dump, could catch a supervisorial meeting at the Hall of Administration in the morning and spend the afternoon among the public records, just down Temple Street, collecting the goods on offending county supervisors and their allies.

The convenience has ended. In June and July, the records were moved about 15 miles south to a newly acquired $37.6-million building in Norwalk, a city closer to Orange County than to the Civic Center. It was a consolidation of the county’s 150 million records of real estate transactions, births, deaths, marriages, voter registrations, election results and reports of campaign contributions.

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When I heard of the move, it sounded like a supervisorial cover-up, a blatant effort to foil snoopy citizen activists and reporters. I could just hear the supes conniving: “Sure they can see the public records. Let them drive to Norwalk.”

The only way to reach the place is to navigate the frequently overloaded Santa Ana Freeway or take a long bus ride, unless you happen to live in Southeast L.A. County. In contrast, the Hall of Records was within walking distance of several bus and train lines, as well as being near L.A.’s main freeway interchange.

Also moving south were other important jobs done by the office of the registrar-recorder/county clerk, as the combined operation is known, including performing civil marriage ceremonies. Prospective newlyweds, as well as snoops, must brave the Santa Ana Freeway.

I phoned Bea Valdez, the county’s registrar-recorder/county clerk, and demanded an explanation. We agreed to meet at her office in the new building Monday morning.

Valdez, who rose from stenographer to boss, was pleasant and sympathetic while I explained that the move had the effect of making public records less accessible.

She disagreed. On the contrary, she said, combining the records in a single building made it easier for investigators.

Parking at the Civic Center is expensive. And she reminded me that not all the records were there. Election campaign documents--a major component of investigative reporting--already were kept in a hard-to-reach section of Commerce, several miles from the Civic Center.

She showed me the new facilities. The rooms set aside for public record searches were light and air-conditioned. There was plenty of table space. Outside was a large, free parking lot.

It’s nice, I said. But what about the weddings? If you live in Lancaster, Norwalk’s a long way to go to get married. Valdez showed me the “chapel,” a small, plain room with a dark wood speaker’s stand. A kindly looking, older man wearing a black robe stood behind it.

Vince Lipari had come back to part-time county service after retirement. He had intended to train the volunteers who man election booths, but Valdez drafted him to perform weddings. “We wanted someone with a deep, resonant voice,” she said. Lipari, who does between 20 to 25 weddings a day, enjoys sending newlyweds off into the world. “I ask them to be good to one another and be happy,” he said.

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I had been told of the consolidation by Prof. Ed Guthman, who teaches investigative reporting at USC. Guthman’s students were able to take the bus to the Hall of Records and return to campus in time for other classes. The move to Norwalk makes this difficult.

Many citizen activists find it even harder. Some are too old for the Santa Ana Freeway. Some are working people, with just a few hours to spare for poking through records. Others live too far away, in places such as Malibu, Chatsworth or West Covina.

This point was not mentioned by county officials in the report they wrote in 1991 recommending the move. That’s not surprising. Access to public records has never been high on the supervisorial list of priorities.

Physically, the new building is an improvement over the dank accommodations of the past. And, if you want a civil marriage ceremony, you couldn’t get a better person than Vince Lipari to perform it.

But for most people, the move to Norwalk is just another obstacle in the path of anyone who wants to dig up facts needed to expose government to public scrutiny.