City Attorney Helene Leichter returned Monday to City Hall after
a month-long absence.
City Attorney Helene Leichter returned Monday to City Hall after a month-long absence.
Leichter had gone on leave after a routine performance review by the City Council on Feb. 2.
Since then, no one at City Hall or on the council would comment on why she was away, when she was expected back or who initiated the leave. Leichter declined Monday to comment on her absence.
Councilman Steve Tate said Monday that he, too, would not be commenting.
“We are not talking about that,” Tate said.
Councilman Larry Carr said he wasn’t going to say anything either.
“The city attorney is on leave and, as with any city employee, she has right to privacy,” Carr said.
Mayor Dennis Kennedy and Councilmen Greg Sellers and Mark Grzan also had no comment.
City Manager Ed Tewes said any comment would have to come from Leichter.
Daily legal questions have been handled by acting city attorneys Dan Siegel and Bill McClure, who also took Leichter’s place during council meetings. They are partners in the law firm of Jorgenson, Siegel, McClure & Flegel in Menlo Park, the firm from which Leichter was hired by the city in 2000.
According to the voice mail message on Leichter’s office phone she was originally due back on March 3. However, the extra two weeks have just added to the stack on her desk.
“I’m still digging out,” Leichter said Monday afternoon.
Jorgenson, Siegel, McClure & Flegel is described on their website as a General Civil and Trial Practice, Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Administration, Business, Real Property, Land Use and Municipal Law.
Leichter received a settlement from the city in September resolving her concerns over the city’s handling of an accusation of impropriety made against her by former Councilwoman Hedy Chang, that she had had an affair with City Manager Ed Tewes.
Both Leichter and Tewes consistently and strongly deny the allegation.
The settlement agreement required the city to pay Leichter $25,000 and her attorney $15,000. It 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.
The settlement was in compensation “for emotional distress and physical injury,” the settlement said but gave no details on what physical injury might include.
On Leichter’s part, she agreed not to sue the city over its handling of Chang’s accusation and swore that she currently had no complaint pending in any court or agency against Chang. The agreement allowed Leichter to file a future complaint against Chang’s conduct “while acting in her personal capacity and outside the course of her position with the City Council.”
To date, that has not happened.Leichter’s ast emplo-yment contract was signed in April 2003 and extends through Sept. 1, 2005. Because she gave up an automatic increase in 2003, in light of the city’s budget stress, her salary remained at $135,187 until July 2004 when a 1.6 percent cost of living increase raised it to $137,350.
She also earns three weeks of vacation and 80 hours of administrative leave to make up for working frequently outside of normal business hours.
Leichter was granted an additional, one time only, 40 hours’ leave in 2003 in exchange for giving up the automatic raise.
The current month’s leave from which she has just returned, is separate from the settlement’s seven weeks’ vacation.
Leichter also receives a $400 a month car allowance and the city pays 6 percent of her salary into the city’s deferred compensation plan, raised from 5 percent on Sept. 1. Leichter was first officially hired as city attorney in Sept. 1, 2000.
The city attorney was born in Fresno, received her undergraduate degree from Stanford and her law degree from Santa Clara University.
Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at ch********@*************es.com or phoning (408) 779-4106 Ext. 201.
