Dear Editor, I
’ve tried. I’ve waited several days in hopes that my outrage at
the city’s settlement with the city attorney as outlined in your
story on Sept. 28 would wane.
Dear Editor,
I’ve tried. I’ve waited several days in hopes that my outrage at the city’s settlement with the city attorney as outlined in your story on Sept. 28 would wane. No such luck. I apologize in advance for the length of what follows, but it remains lengthy notwithstanding my electronic snipping and tucking.
I hardly know where to begin. According to your story, an agreement has been made to pay the city attorney and her attorney cash amounts, together with job-related perks awarded to the city attorney. It is assumed these benefits were given for some civic purpose. If not, then the stipends could constitute an illegal gift of public funds. As part of the settlement, the city attorney agrees not to sue the city. The city officials must have viewed such lawsuits as a distinct possibility as it appears that obtaining this agreement is the sole purpose of the city’s payment to her.
If the city feared such a suit so much that it agreed to the payments from the city’s strained financial resources, it must have viewed the city attorney at least a potential legal adversary, her status as actual adversary forestalled only by the payments. And now she is back in the city’s good graces, having bought and paid for the privilege of not having the city’s lawyer sue the city. And now this is the attorney the city on whom, through its officials, the city must rely in arguably one of the closest and most sensitive of relationships, i.e., an attorney and their client. Problem? What problem? Pay an attorney not to sue you, then pay that attorney to be your lawyer.
It appears the city’s fears of a potential lawsuit against them by their lawyer was premised on the alleged comments of a potentially slanderous nature made by a councilperson against the city attorney. As near as can be seen from the article, these comments were not made by the city. They supposedly were made by a council member who had not given up her constitutional free speech rights when elected to that post. Council members have a right as much as any other citizen to pass along rumors, no matter how mistaken they may be.
However, just as with any other citizen, if such rumors are slanderous, the councilperson may be, as any other citizen, sued by the person slandered. If a councilperson did slander another person, such as the city attorney, the council member may well stand in fear of a lawsuit. But this potential liability should be that of the individual offender, not of a body of which she is a member. If she is also a member of the Elks Club or Rotary, can they too be sued by the offended person? Yet it was the city, not the councilperson, who has paid to prevent this lawsuit.
And don’t expect the mayor or other city officers to offer further explanation of their settlement to the city attorney. They have been “ordered” by their attorney not to do so. Having been a lawyer for over 30 years, I am amazed that all that time I had the ability to order anyone to do anything, least of all, elected officials. Beg, plead, cajole, suggest, yes. Order? No.
So we citizens who elected these city officers cannot inquire into the details of why they paid our money to the city attorney. We’ve been outvoted by a constituency of one … their attorney. If this is the kind of democracy we’re trying to impose on Iraq, no wonder they’re resisting.
Ray Morris, Morgan Hill
