Councilman Huizar Responds to Absenteeism Accusations

Ron Kaye, the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News, caused a minor stir on Monday when he posted on his website that Councilman José Huizar led all city council members with 13 missed council meetings during the month of June and July.

You can see Ron Kaye's full post here.

Huizar's press director Rick Coca quickly contacted Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch in response to Kaye's story, which we to, stating that Huizar had actually only missed five of 25 meetings, not 13.

Huizar also posted the following on his Twitter page on Tuesday afternoon.

"Ron Kaye's numbers are wrong but he refuses to correct his story. I did not miss 13 meetings in June and July."

The data provided by the Los Angeles City Clerk's office support Huizar's claims, showing that he has only missed five meeting in the last two months.

Patricia Lattimore, who works in the clerk's office, explained that breaking down city council attendance is often difficult, though, as attendance records don't show how late a council member showed up, or how early they left.

"If a council member is marked as present, all it means is that at one point during the meeting, they showed up," Lattimore said.

Huizar's attendance record looks to be nowhere near as abysmal as it has been portrayed to be by Kaye, it also falls a bit short of the much rosier numbers presented by his overall attendance numbers.

The clerks office also provides roll call data, which gives a more accurate picture of council member participation. The records, which can be found here, show which council members were on hand for each roll call taken during a given meeting.

While not necessarily representative of overall council member participation, Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch examined the rolls from a June 22 meeting to demonstrate how much more information can be gleaned from looking at rolls, as opposed to gauging concilmember participation based solely on overall attendance.

For example, only councilmember Janice Hahn is marked as absent for the meeting, but councilmembers Huizar, Pual Krekorian, Bernard Parks, Jan Perry, Paul Koretz and Tony Cardenas all miss at least one roll.