Thousands of staff reports and agenda attachments for past Orange County Board of Supervisors meetings appear to be showing up blank on the county’s website.
Officials said they’re now on track to restore the documents after Voice of OC inquired about the problem late last week.
More than five years’ worth of staff reports and agenda attachments spanning about 200 meetings from 2007 to mid-2012 appear to be missing when trying to access them through the county’s website.
Clerk of the Board Susan Novak said officials at the county’s data center, which stores the agenda records, told her that they were removed about a year ago because the facility ran out of storage capacity.
After a Voice of OC reporter called about the problem Friday, Novak said she asked information technology staff about restoring the documents.
That process will take “at least a few weeks,” said county IT chief Mahesh Patel.
The data center is managed by Xerox Corp. as part of a more than $280-million contract that was originally set to expire in 2011.
Xerox is now competing against two other companies who want to take over management of the center in what will be among the most expensive service contracts the county has ever awarded.
Staff reports and attachments often provide the public with their most detailed view of how and why big government decisions are made.
They contain the key information policy makers use to decide on major issues from multimillion-dollar construction contracts to large-scale housing developments.
In the meantime, Novak said, her office can email most of the records upon request.
You can reach Nick Gerda at ngerda@gmail.com, and follow him on Twitter: @nicholasgerda.