Feuer Calls for Guidelines on Officials’ Internet Sites

Responding to an article in The Times, City Councilman Mike Feuer recommended Friday drafting rules to ensure that elected officials do not use the city’s outpost in cyberspace for political purposes.

Feuer introduced a motion that instructed the city’s Ethics Commission and the city attorney’s office to draft guidelines for what information can be attached to the city’s page on the World Wide Web portion of the Internet.

“As we go into the information superhighway, we need a road map, especially when city money is used,” Feuer said.

The Times reported Friday that the city’s new Web page includes a site for Mayor Richard Riordan, which offers news releases and a glowing biography written by his staff.

The page includes pictures of Riordan during his State of the City speech and at various ceremonial functions. It also offers a biography that describes in positive terms his efforts to make the city safer and more business-friendly.

“It does raise interesting questions going into an election year,” said Leann Pelham, deputy director of the Ethics Commission.

Riordan and City Atty. James K. Hahn are the only elected officials with sites on the city-funded page. Feuer and council members Laura Chick and Mark Ridley-Thomas are currently designing their own sites for the page.

The city is expected to spend about $200,000 next year for computer technology necessary to maintain the Web page. The technology will also be used to download other information from the Internet for use in city reports.

Feuer said his motion, which will be considered by a committee of the council next week, is not intended as a criticism of Riordan’s Web site. He said he only offered it to ensure that the city’s cyberspace project is not misused.

Pelham agreed that Los Angeles’ Web page should be monitored to make sure that elected officials don’t use it to promote themselves at election time.

Noelia Rodriguez, Riordan’s press deputy, echoed those sentiments.

“We agree that anything could be misused, but that is why we agree with having guidelines,” she said.

As for the mayor’s site, Rodriguez called it a “prototype” that is still in development. In fact, she said she didn’t know the site was on the Web until she read about it Friday.

“As we get on the onramp to the information superhighway, we are going to experience some fits and starts,” she said.

Chick backs a study of developing guidelines, said her chief of staff, Karen Constine.

“We would be supportive of city staff providing clear guidelines about what information should be distributed on the city’s World Wide Web page,” she said.

Constine added that Chick’s page is being designed using a format provided by the city’s Information Technology Agency. An agency spokesman said Riordan’s site and those being designed for other council offices are using essentially the same format.

Feuer’s motion comes as the city considers providing candidates as well as supporters and opponents of ballot measures time to express their views on the city’s public access TV channel.

In the case of the channel, Feuer and others said the city must write guidelines for providing equal time to all candidates and views on election-year issues.