When the City Council earmarked $100,000 to pay for last
summer
’s legal work stemming from a private investigator tailing the
city manager, they hoped that would cover the bills. In all, the
city has paid in excess of $269,000 for fees and other costs
associated the Ciy Hall scandal.
When the City Council earmarked $100,000 to pay for last summer’s legal work stemming from a private investigator tailing the city manager, they hoped that would cover the bills. In all, the city has paid in excess of $269,000 for fees and other costs associated the Ciy Hall scandal.
When the dust settled, the cost was $150,000 for attorneys alone and that was after some fierce negotiating moved the figure downward.
Invoices totaling more than twice that ended up at City Hall, according to Councilmen Larry Carr and Greg Sellers, who ran the city’s inquiry into the affair.
“The bill was originally more than $200,000,” Carr said. “They discounted lots of different things and we got it (the bill) down to $150,000.”
Sellers said the bill included time and action spent on Public Records Act requests from three newspapers, including The Times, and from attorneys representing then Councilwoman Hedy Chang and local attorney Bruce Tichinin.
“They also spent a lot of extra time because of threatened litigation from both Hedy and Bruce,” Carr said.
On July 28, the council authorized three contracts with the San Francisco-based law firm of Nielson and Merksamer related to the City Hall troubles: $25,000 for legal services related to the surveillance of the city manager; $50,000 for personnel issues; and $25,000 for miscellaneous legal services.
The city had received invoices totaling between $24,000 and $25,000 for the private investigator’s work, City Manager Ed Tewes told The Times in August. Carr said this week that the investigator’s bills have been paid and, with the attorney’s bills on hand, the cost of the scandal that rocked City Hall and brought Morgan Hill to Bay Area attention in July is known and complete.
“Nothing is outstanding,” Carr said.
The public became aware of the situation on July 6 when The Times published a story about a report by Sellers and Carr that included the results of the investigation by Kelly Jones of Esquire Inquiry. His charge was to discover who had followed Tewes on an out-of-town trip. The culprit was identified as Brian Carey who, it turned out, had been working for Mark Bell, head of a private investigation firm hired by Tichinin.
Tichinin later said he was trying to find out if there was any truth to rumors that Tewes was having an affair with City Attorney Helene Leichter – which both principals strongly denied. If so, Tichinin said he intended to ask the council to obtain advice from another, more independent attorney.
Leichter, he said, had changed her mind to agree with Tewes on a land use matter which Tichinin and business partner Howard Vierra were proposing. Leichter has denied changing her mind on the issue.
It turned out that no sign of an affair could be found and the two city employees continue to deny its existence. Fearing a possible lawsuit from “for emotional distress and physical injury,” in September the city settled $25,000 upon Leichter and $15,000 upon her attorney. The settlement also allowed her to work from home two days a week through the end of the year and to take – one time only – an additional seven weeks’ vacation.
Tewes said he had never discussed the possibility of suing the city over the matter and has taken no action.
Chang was involved because she had mentioned the alleged affair to Tichinin who was, at the time, her attorney. Both said he was not serving as her legal counsel when the investigation began. Chang did not run for a third term in the November election.
Mark Grzan replaced Chang as of Dec. 1.
Sellers and Carr said they were happy to see the end of the affair.
“Hopefully this puts all of this behind us,” Carr said. “We wanted to get it done by the end of the year so the new council can go forward.”
“To spend a dime on this incident was too much money,” Sellers said.
That leaves the land-use matter in which Tichinin and Vierra wanted to build several houses on the lower slopes of El Toro Mountain. It involved the legality of a technical error inadvertently approved in the general plan. Council tried but was unable to make a decision on the land use issue and has asked the courts to decide. The case will initially be heard by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge William Elfving on Jan. 11.
