Less than a year ago the Morgan Hill City Council agreed to
extend by one year the employment of Morgan Hill City Attorney
Helene Leichter, with seven additional weeks paid vacation, and pay
her $45,000, purportedly because former Councilwoman Hedy Chang and
others had damaged Leichter
’s feelings and reputation by making accusations that Leichter
was carrying on an affair with City Manager J. Edward Tewes.
By Bruce Tichinin
Less than a year ago the Morgan Hill City Council agreed to extend by one year the employment of Morgan Hill City Attorney Helene Leichter, with seven additional weeks paid vacation, and pay her $45,000, purportedly because former Councilwoman Hedy Chang and others had damaged Leichter’s feelings and reputation by making accusations that Leichter was carrying on an affair with City Manager J. Edward Tewes.
The council made no attempt to determine the truth of the allegations, but accepted without skepticism the unsurprising denials of Tewes and Leichter. The council also did not pause to consider whether, if the relationship existed, it created the equivalent of nepotism and the appearance that the independence of judgment necessary for effective separation of powers between these two important governmental offices had been compromised.
After her vacation, Leichter came to work at City Hall for a little while, then left for awhile, returned again at the council’s request, but only for one week, and then apparently (though no details of this whatsoever have been released to the public), once more threatened to sue the city.
The council agreed to pay Leichter (1) $70,000 more, supposedly because the city had somehow breached her employment contract (though it is undisputed that she decided to forego her duties at City Hall) and also (2) $160,000 for “alleged physical injury and sickness.”
We need to ask: (1) what is the true wrong allegedly done by some city official to Leichter that required paying her this much money, (2) who is/are the city official(s) who committed it, and (3) what does the council propose to prevent such expensive mistakes?
What really was the “physical injury and sickness” to Leichter? She apparently does not allege that she fell and was hurt running away from her duties at City Hall. But, because neither she nor the council will say what it was, I am going to speculate that Leichter allegedly suffered some new or continuing injury to her feelings arising out of this mess. I will stand corrected on everything suggested hereafter if someone in the know at City Hall comes up with some credible description of the injury other than her continued angst.
But, what city employee wrongly caused these hurt feelings to her over the scandal, and how? It can’t be the alleged wrongs of former Councilwoman Chang. The city supposedly already paid $40,000 for that. It can’t be municipal liability for seduction by Mr. Tewes. Leichter denies that happened. It can’t be spreading of the allegations of the relationship by other council members or city staff.
The council so vigorously accepted denials of the relationship that it publicly condemned Chang. It can’t be attempts of the private attorney (me) to investigate reports of the affair, because I was doing that for a client whose application for land development permits was denied because the city attorney switched her position on the legality of his proposal from favorable to unfavorable. This was apparently to help the city manager, who chose the opportunity of that other client’s application to punish me for having represented his perceived enemies.
I violated no right of anyone in conducting the investigation, but even if I had, the city could never be liable for it because I am not a city employee or agent.
The only possibility that makes any sense is that Leichter claims the City Council wronged her by complying with City Manager Tewes’ requests that (1) the council spend more than $200,000 in private investigator fees and attorneys fees to discover that I was hired by Howard Vierra to conduct the surveillance of Tewes and (2) the council make public the existence of my private investigation in order to censure Chang and condemn me for it.
It is entirely believable that the city attorney’s feelings and reputation suffered greatly from the scandal caused by the municipal decision to go public with the whole matter. My investigation proceeded privately not to injure the reputations of Leichter, Tewes or City Hall as well as to avoid personal liability to them. Note that they wisely have not attempted to sue me.
Surely, the City Council, supposedly advised by an independent attorney to deal with her claim, has been informed that the city is not liable for any injury to her.
Nevertheless, the council seems all too ready to believe that it was not really Leichter’s fault that the city took the matter public. That leaves me to conclude that the council considers City Manager Tewes to be the real cause of Leichter’s injury by his insistence that the City Council issue the report – to squelch further investigation on my part.
If Tewes is the cause of injury to Leichter, the city is responsible because he is a city employee.
Lastly, here are some questions for the City Council:
What, precisely, if anything, was the interest of the citizens of Morgan Hill advanced in these expenditures engineered by Tewes? If such an interest existed, was it competently served by Tewes’ handling of the matter, and was it important enough to justify these sizable expenditures?
What is the justification for retaining Tewes in so important a role as city manager when he seems prone to leading you into such expensive blunders? Have you reached the point of representing him – and not the taxpayers?
