Berkeley council presses staff to restore archival access after website redesign
May 10, 2026 | Berkeley , Alameda County, California
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Council members expressed sharp concern on July 26 that a recent redesign of Berkeley’s official website has removed or made hard to find large swaths of archival government material, including attachments, maps and some general-plan graphics.
Council Member Hahn, sponsor of the referral, said the new site reduced publicly reachable pages from an estimated 15,000 to roughly 500 and broke many links embedded in past council items. Hahn described multiple staff meetings that produced partial agreement: staff offered training in how to use the city’s official records portal, records-online; proposed a style guide and a practice of attaching consolidated PDFs to agenda items; and offered limited staff support to help council offices recover missing materials. Hahn’s referral asks the city manager to develop measures to improve searching and sorting of archival records, consider a modest up-to-$50,000 temporary budget for clerical help to restore council offices’ links, and to retain a rolling set of key recent materials on the public site.
City Manager responded that the city invested in a multimillion-dollar redesign intended to improve front-end usability for residents seeking services, but acknowledged the redesign did not preserve historic link structures and that some older PDFs are not searchable. The manager committed to developing a scope of work and to returning to the council with proposals and potential budget needs (noting a possible November resubmission for resources).
Council members emphasized the public-interest implications: several said critical maps and appendixes — including evacuation maps tied to the general plan — are currently unavailable online, hampering public review and civic oversight. Vice Mayor Harrison and others urged staff to investigate options such as temporarily restoring an archived version of the old site to extract documents, converting older PDFs into searchable formats, and upgrading the records-online portal to improve searchability. The city attorney was asked to clarify legal retention and access obligations under Berkeley’s open government ordinance.
No formal vote accompanied the discussion; the council directed staff to return with a recommended scope and resource plan.
Council Member Hahn, sponsor of the referral, said the new site reduced publicly reachable pages from an estimated 15,000 to roughly 500 and broke many links embedded in past council items. Hahn described multiple staff meetings that produced partial agreement: staff offered training in how to use the city’s official records portal, records-online; proposed a style guide and a practice of attaching consolidated PDFs to agenda items; and offered limited staff support to help council offices recover missing materials. Hahn’s referral asks the city manager to develop measures to improve searching and sorting of archival records, consider a modest up-to-$50,000 temporary budget for clerical help to restore council offices’ links, and to retain a rolling set of key recent materials on the public site.
City Manager responded that the city invested in a multimillion-dollar redesign intended to improve front-end usability for residents seeking services, but acknowledged the redesign did not preserve historic link structures and that some older PDFs are not searchable. The manager committed to developing a scope of work and to returning to the council with proposals and potential budget needs (noting a possible November resubmission for resources).
Council members emphasized the public-interest implications: several said critical maps and appendixes — including evacuation maps tied to the general plan — are currently unavailable online, hampering public review and civic oversight. Vice Mayor Harrison and others urged staff to investigate options such as temporarily restoring an archived version of the old site to extract documents, converting older PDFs into searchable formats, and upgrading the records-online portal to improve searchability. The city attorney was asked to clarify legal retention and access obligations under Berkeley’s open government ordinance.
No formal vote accompanied the discussion; the council directed staff to return with a recommended scope and resource plan.
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