Friday, April 24, 2015

[Marin County] Top Marin lawyer targeted in pension probe


The Marin Civic Center’s top lawyer is under fire from critics who say he’s a $434,000 “triple dipper” packing two pensions and conflicts of interest that rule him out as an impartial analyst of a grand jury investigation disclosing pension wrongdoing by county supervisors, San Rafael officials and others.
The civil grand jury reported that officials years ago repeatedly broke the government code by approving retroactive pension benefits without advance public notice or required fiscal analysis, ballooning liability for taxpayers and raising questions about the legal standing of the benefits involved.
Of 107 violations unearthed by the jury, 92 were attributed to county supervisors. The California Employees Retirement Law of 1937 governing the Marin system says that before approving benefit increases, officials — in this case, the Board of Supervisors, San Rafael City Council and Novato and Southern Marin fire boards — “shall secure the services” of an actuary who “shall provide a statement of the actuarial impact upon future annual costs” which “shall be made public at a public meeting.” None of this was done.
Jury reports require a response, and Marin County Counsel Steven Woodside promptly announced he would direct a legal analysis of the report. He told the Independent Journal a legal challenge would be futile because benefits promised more than a decade ago by labor contracts trump procedural issues.
Critics rip top lawyer
Critics said Woodside’s statement prejudged the issue, and asserted that he had a conflict of interest because he collects two public pensions totaling $177,000, and served as Sonoma County’s top legal adviser when supervisors there made similar mistakes hiking pensions without proper notice, actuarial reports or disclosure of the fiscal tab.
The 66-year-old Woodside, who has served three counties as chief lawyer, said he does not believe he has a conflict but will “diligently review” the question before embarking on an analysis of grand jury criticism of wrongdoing involving his key client, the Board of Supervisors.
“I seriously doubt there is any viable cause of action or ability to unwind these contractual pension obligations” due to mistakes made a decade or more ago, Woodside said Thursday.
Woodside, who earns $256,600 a year in total compensation for serving as top lawyer at the Civic Center, accepted extra salary instead of a Marin pension, but collects a $94,800 state CalPERS pension for serving as county counsel in Santa Clara for 24 years, and a $82,600 pension for serving as county counsel in Sonoma for 12 years after that. He joined Marin as top counsel about three years ago.
Pension critics in Marin and Sonoma counties turned up the heat, calling Woodside’s payout an outrage, the result of an extravagant pension system the public cannot afford. They asserted that conflicts of interest prevent him from directing the Civic Center’s analysis of the grand jury’s disclosures about Marin’s pension improprieties.
Conflict of interest
David Brown of Mill Valley, reading a statement from Citizens for Sustainable Pension Plans, recited a shopping list of conflict contentions Tuesday, telling county supervisors that Woodside’s Sonoma County pension “benefits from the same kind of improperly authorized enhancements as have been found here in Marin.” The rest of Woodside’s staff, which benefits from the Marin pension system, has conflicts as well, Brown said, urging that an “independent legal counsel” be assigned to analyze and reply to the jury’s report.
 “This investigation must be done fairly and impartially,” the letter from the pension group said. “That means it must not be done by the County Counsel’s Office.” The county board made no comment.
Jody Morales, head of the Marin pension group, called for further investigation “by neutral third parties in a position to impose sanctions or reversals” to determine whether pension increases approved in violation of the code are vested or not. Woodside’s participation in addressing the jury report “is completely inappropriate on every level,” she said.
Sonoma critic chimes in
Ken Churchill, a founding member of New Sonoma, another pension reform group, alerted the 2012 Sonoma grand jury about transgressions by Sonoma supervisors in approving pension benefits years earlier without public notice and fiscal analysis. Churchill was called to appear before the Marin County Civil Grand Jury as well.
Woodside “was the one who did not follow the law in Sonoma County,” and as the top legal adviser was supposed to “make sure the county followed all the rules” when Sonoma supervisors violated the government code, Churchill noted. He said the “illegal increases” approved in Sonoma substantially boosted Woodside’s Sonoma pension.
Churchill, noting a state Supreme Court pension case Woodside was involved in as legal counsel cited the need to complete “all prescribed statutory steps,” said that while the Sonoma grand jury’s findings were swept under the rug by Sonoma officials, the new Marin jury report could have “huge” implications for similar systems across the state, where unfunded liabilities total $75 billion.
Woodside’s retort
Woodside begs to differ, saying errors occurring more than a decade ago cannot be used to roll back benefits. “If they are not timely challenged, they become vested,” he said. As for his work as top lawyer in Sonoma when supervisors there were violating the government code’s public notice and fiscal analysis rules, “I personally did not do the hands-on legal work,” Woodside said. “That’s no excuse. It was on my watch,” he noted.
At the same time, “a lot of water has passed under the bridge” since then, making the matter all but moot — aside from the need to make sure rules are followed in the future, he said.
Woodside, stung by the attack on his integrity after a long legal career that included big utility case triumphs in which he helped save ratepayers “many, many” millions of dollars, intends to pursue legal issues involved in the grand jury disclosures. The probe will begin with a decision on “whether there is a disabling conflict affecting me or members of my office,” he said.
“Whether there should be an independent third party, I haven’t made that decision yet,” the veteran county counsel said. “This should be about the law, and not the lawyers.”
April 23, 2015
Marin Independent Journal
By Nels Johnson

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