Writing responses to grand jury findings is not always an easy thing for council members, but that job becomes even more difficult when the findings are vague and confusing.
During Tuesday’s Lindsay City Council meeting, council members discussed what responses they wanted to send to the grand jury about its findings that included everything from alleged Brown Act violations to some council members meeting in private residences to discuss city business. However, members had difficulty finding agreement because the report’s language was ambiguous.
“That was the difficult part of it, to try and find a commonality of how we were going to present this,“ said Mayor Ramona Villarreal-Padilla.
“I personally don’t see big changes occurring as a result of whatever the outcome of this is,” said Interim City Manager Bill Zigler. “This is real wishy-washy to tell you the truth.”
Out of the five grand jury findings, the council agreed with two, disagreed with two and decided no response was needed for another.
Finding 1
According to the report, “the grand jury determined the combining of the office of the city manager and police chief positions critically weakened the checks-and-balances with regards to personnel issues. This eliminated the division of authority to more than one person.”
In 2008, Rich Wilkinson was appointed as the city’s public safety chief and in 2011 he officially added the city manager title and duties.
In agreement with the finding were Villarreal-Padilla, Mayor Pro Tem Rosaena Sanchez and Councilman Steve Mecum. Council members Pam Kimball and Danny Salinas disagreed.
“These are two very different positions, one being law enforcement and one being city manager,” Sanchez said, adding by doing so it gave more power to one individual.
Villarreal-Padilla said the two positions were competing because a city manager’s job is to save the city money and a police chief’s job is to find more money for the police department. “It gives the person absolute power,” she said.
Kimball disagreed, saying the combining of positions is not unheard of, adding Exeter had done the same thing a while ago.
“When we combined the two jobs, we needed to save money, and that’s what we did,” Salinas said. “It’s not something that was done without any thought behind it.”
By majority vote, the council agreed with the finding.
Finding 2
“A number of costly employee settlements resulted from the aforementioned combination of these two positions,” the report states.
“I don’t see how they can come up with this particular finding,” said City Attorney Mario Zamora. He said there were only two people to leave that cost the city in severance pay and litigation; one was former city manager Wilkinson, who received severance pay, and the other was a former city police officer who had filed a lawsuit against the city for wrongful termination.
“It would not have impacted whether the [city manager] position was combined,” Zamora said. “That’s a vast oversimplification of what occurred in finding two ... I can’t see how their [grand jury] facts support this reality.”
With a 3-2 vote, the council disagreed with the finding. Sanchez and Mecum voted in agreement.
Finding 3
This was perhaps the most ambiguous finding and the most difficult for the council to answer. According to the report, “the grand jury determined that the lack of meaningful evidence made allegations of Brown Act Violations difficult to substantiate.”
“I tell you right now I didn’t violate the Brown Act, so how do I vote? Agree or disagree? Because I didn’t break the freaking rules,” Mecum said. “It’s like their insinuating something.”
Sanchez agreed. “You either violated or you didn’t. I don’t understand the ‘lack of meaningful [evidence].’ ... I know I didn’t violate no Brown Act,” she said.
All were in agreement, including the city manager and the city attorney, that the finding did not require a response.
Finding 4
“Some city council members were involved in discussions over union issues at private residences and outside the parameters of established procedures,” the report states.
The grand jury did find that at no time was a quorum present during the reported meetings. Specifically, Mecum, Sanchez and Villarreal-Padilla were accused of meeting with Brian Clower, the former police officer who sued the city for wrongful termination, and were accused of encouraging him to seek the lawsuit. All three council members claim that while they met with Clower, they did not encourage him or discuss city business.
“I wasn’t there. I disagree. .... I wasn’t involved in those discussions,” Villarreal-Padilla said.
Mecum denied the accusation as well. “I didn’t deal with anyone. I didn’t negotiate. I didn’t make promises. I listened to a complaint, so I wouldn’t consider that outside my parameters and established procedures [from the city charter].”
Salinas and Kimball agreed with the finding, but were outvoted by the other three council members.
Finding 5
The grand jury found that “the cost of the employee settlements contributed to the city’s poor financial condition and the necessity to impose employee furloughs.” City council members were in full agreement with this finding.
The grand jury also provided two recommendations for the council. The council members should familiarize themselves with open meeting laws, procedures and conducting municipal business; and the council should be more deliberative when considering the combining of key managerial positions.
The council agreed with the first recommendation and Kimball suggested adding Brown Act training to their regular training on ethics and council procedures taken every two years.
“It would be good as a council to review the charter every two years,” Kimball said.
As for the second recommendation, council did not agree, stating the wording was vague and unfounded. “They did not interview any of us,” Kimball said. “I’m just annoyed with the whole thing because they don’t know how deliberative we were.”
Staff will prepare the council’s responses for approval at the next council meeting. The responses would then be sent to the grand jury.
April 14, 2016
The Porterville Recorder
By Kelli Ballard
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