The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved guidelines to retain documents and files from outgoing members. The retention schedule will be a major component of a larger transition plan that will help “restore trust in our local government,” according to Councilman David Ryu, 4th District.

The city clerk’s office will provide training and guidance to each council office to implement the records disposition schedules. It’s part of an effort by Ryu to create standardized transition rules for incoming members of the council and their predecessors.

The retention schedule specifies how long certain documents – from appointment calendars to budget files to press releases and speeches – should be retained by the city, ranging from two to eight years.

Ryu introduced the motion in December after he started his term in 2015 without any documents from his predecessor, former Councilman Tom LaBonge. LaBonge chose to destroy more than 100 boxes of documents when he left office.

“Upon entering office, my staff and I started without documentation or paperwork related to open land use cases, constituent inquires, or information on outstanding commitments of discretionary funds,” Ryu said Wednesday. “The recommendations before this council will ensure that doesn’t happen again.”

Ryu added that background information is useful to deliver services to constituents, and necessary when making decisions.

“Constituents deserve and should expect seamless transitions between council members so that current cases and projects are not delayed or forgotten when our elected leaders change,” Ryu said. “I strongly believe these safeguards will ensure continuity between offices, which will improve constituent outcomes during the natural flux between an incoming and outgoing council administration.”

Ryu said without transition rules, departing officials can leave nothing behind. At an earlier hearing this year, councilmen Paul Koretz, 5th District, and Marqueece Harris-Dawson, 8th District, agreed after similar experiences. Koretz said on Tuesday that there was “a lot less than there should have been” when he entered office. He said it was “hit-and-miss” if an outgoing member chose to retain the documents or not.

The retention schedule approval comes a week after Ryu’s office was notified that they will be receiving more digital documents from LaBonge’s tenure. Additionally, two weeks ago, the First Amendment Coalition (FAC) filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles to highlight local government’s “all-too common – and illegal – practice of destroying public records” in regards to LaBonge’s documents. After thousands of physical documents from his time in office had been marked for destruction and removed from his council office, the FAC filed a request for LaBonge’s files, but they were denied because the search found no records.

The city attorney’s office recovered 35 of the boxes in 2015. On Jan. 21, the city attorney’s office alerted Ryu’s office of the remaining boxes and returned them to his office at city hall. After reviewing them, Ryu made his predecessor’s documents available to the public. Todd Gaydowski, a representative for Piper Tech, said the rest of the 113 boxes have been destroyed. Los Angeles City Clerk Holly Wolcott said state laws regarding records retention do not apply to city council offices and that no protocols existed until now.

The city clerk reported that there is no fiscal impact associated with the approval of the retention schedules. Savings could result if city departments dispose of records more promptly under the new authorization procedures. Currently, the city records center is holding over 78,000 boxes of records that are eligible for destruction at an annual expense to the city, equivalent to more than $121,000.

Estevan Montemayor, communications director for Ryu, said city staff is working on the full transition plan and expects it to be considered by the city council later this year.