While City Attorney Helene Leichter settled with the city for
$50,000 plus seven more weeks
’ vacation, City Manager Ed Tewes said he had no intention of
seeking a similar arrangement for himself.
While City Attorney Helene Leichter settled with the city for $50,000 plus seven more weeks’ vacation, City Manager Ed Tewes said he had no intention of seeking a similar arrangement for himself.
“I have not raised any issues that would require a settlement with the city,” Tewes said.
Mayor Dennis Kennedy confirmed Tuesday that Tewes had not threatened a similar suit.
“There has been no similar claim or action with respect to the city manager,” Kennedy said.
He said he was relieved.
The city and Leichter agreed Monday that, in return for the money, vacation time and allowing her to work from home two days a week, she would not sue the city over the way the City Council handled accusations by Councilwoman Hedy Chang that Leichter and Tewes were having an affair. Both deny any affair.
Chang, who is not running for a third term on the council, is at recuperating at home from surgery earlier this week, according to her husband, C.P. Chang. Leichter is still on vacation.
The settlement agreement requires the city to pay Leichter $25,000 and her attorney $15,000. Leichter will have to pay state and federal income taxes on the money. The money is to compensate “for emotional distress and physical injury,” the settlement said, but gives no details on what physical injury she might have sustained.
In the agreement Leichter promised that she had no complaint or lawsuit in the works against the city or Chang but did not give up possibly trying to recover a monetary award from Chang at a future time.
Kennedy said, in Monday’s formal press release, that he is confident the City has appropriately handled what was seen as workplace harassment. He also said the council had not decided whether or not to seek reimbursement from Chang or from attorney Bruce Tichinin.
“We’ll discuss that later,” Kennedy said.
Leichter’s last employment contract was signed in April 2003 and extends through Sept. 1, 2005. Because she gave up her automatic increase in 2003, reflecting the city’s budget stress, her salary remained at $135,187 until July 2004 when the 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 extra seven weeks’ vacation from the settlement and working from home extend through 2004 only.
Leichter also gets 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. During periods when the city was without an official attorney, (first in 1995, then Feb. – Nov. 1998, and from June, 1999 to August 2000) Leichter has provided legal services for the city and the Redevelopment Agency on a contractual basis, “of counsel” for Jorgensen, Siegel, McClure, and Flegel of Menlo Park, the same firm that represented the city in its settlement with Leichter.
The City Attorney was born in Fresno, received her undergraduate degree from Stanford and her law degree from Santa Clara University. Leichter’s father was city attorney and mayor “though not at the same time,” she said, for the Central Valley cities of Avenal and Coalinga.
She lives in Palo Alto with her husband and daughter.
Tewes and his family live in Morgan Hill.
Chang’s allegations were tied to her one-time attorney, Bruce Tichinin, hiring a private investigator to follow Tewes on at least one out-of-town trip, trying to discover proof of the affair. Tichinin said he did not hire the investigator on Chang’s behalf but on that of Howard Vierra, a client and business partner. The pair were disturbed because they said Leichter had changed her mind from backing their proposal to develop 4.5-acres at the end of West Main Avenue – to siding with Tewes’ opposing opinion.
The reason for her change, Tichinin claimed, could have been an affair.
Councilman Larry Carr, who with Councilman Greg Sellers was on the subcommittee that wrote the July 2 report on the investigation into the surveillance, said Leichter’s opinion was in line with Tewes’ from the beginning and did not change.
Council was unable to make a decision on the Vierra request, which involved the legality of a technical error inadvertently approved in the general plan, and has asked the courts to decide. The case will initially be heard by Superior Court Judge William Elfving on Jan. 11.
Chang also has denied that the investigator was hired on her behalf but, during the course of the City Council’s investigation over who was following Tewes, rumors of the affair were found to have circulated widely. The July 2 council report set off a citywide furor.
To date the investigation has caused the city to be presented with bills totaling at least $100,000; the agreement raises that again by half and does not included the city’s legal fees contending with Leichter’s settlement.
