Dublin mayor calls out councilmember for filing records request on her, others

New Dublin Mayor Hu said Councilmember Josey's records request was politically motived

Dublin Mayor Sherry Hu flanked at Tuesday night’s council meeting by Councilmembers Kashef Qaadri and Jean Josey.

☕️MORNING BUZZ

—Dublin approved a straightforward policy on Tuesday night for preserving public communications received and sent on personal devices, while reiterating that elected officials should refrain from texting and emailing from the dais.

It was a small victory for local government transparency, but the story was the continuing rivalry between two candidates that often butted heads during last fall’s mayoral campaign.

Dublin Mayor Sherry Hu, while supportive of the overall aim of the policy, repeatedly raised privacy concerns and worried it lacked specifics about what constitutes a public record. Hu also worried the policy could trigger unintended consequences.

—But there was another issue percolating in Hu’s mind.

“During the past half-year, I’ve had several public records requests on myself,” Hu said at Tuesday night’s meeting. “It is painful. It’s time-consuming, and I believe the reasons to pull public requests on me is because of [politics].”

Councilmember Jean Josey disagreed, noting she only made one public records request. “I don’t personally find this to be burdensome in any way.”

Hu shot back, “You don’t find that burdensome because you are the one putting public requests on me, putting an additional burden on me, and I didn’t return back because I believe in being kind.”

The public records request was sent, Josey said, to current and former councilmember, along with city staff. “It was not directed at you,” she added.

Josey’s requests for public records was voluminous and was made a few weeks after last November’s mayoral election, which she lost to Hu. The request focuses in part on a lawsuit by the city against East Bay Trailers, and others.

It asks for all type of correspondences from individuals association with the group, in addition to a listing of campaign contributions received.

In an email earlier this week, Josey said she made the records request under the suspicion that individuals in the court case were attempting to influence some councilmembers, but not specifically Hu.

(I requested a copy of Josey’s records request to the Dublin City Clerk’s office on Jan. 28. No records responsive to my request were found, according to the city clerk’s office. At the time, I was in possession of a partial copy of Josey’s request.)

—More inside:

• Dublin mayor is “shocked” that councilmember uses cellphone to access city emails, asserts it’s a security risk.

• Union City to allow councilmembers to reallocate unused travel funds to their colleagues.

• Alameda County Trump-proofing ad hoc committee to scrutinize the administration's recent assault on education.

• Campaign finance data for Wednesday: Big money is flowing to aid Oakland’s half-cent sales tax ballot measure.

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