This ain’t it chief

I’ll admit it, I’m way too invested in this whole Grand Jury thing than is actually healthy for a person.  So I’m reading as many public-ish social media threads about it that I can get my hands on.  However there is one thing that I’ve seen pop up that makes me super uncomfortable with that particular framing attempt and that is the discussion around the consultant who was brought on board to assist with the City Manager performance review.

I’ll back up and say that that part of the Grand Jury report was a bit of a red flag for me.  We knew the consultant had quit when this actually happened but I think we all thought it was a difference in personality types.  I mean, we all watched the City Council meetings right?  That was a public display but can you imagine what the People’s Mayor must have been like behind closed doors?  Shudder.

But it turns out that it was more than just a personality conflict, from the GJ report:

The consultant saw it as an effort by at least two councilmembers to hold the evaluation over the city manager until the fire chief position was filled. Because of this behavior, the consultant terminated his firm’s contract with the city prior to completion of any of the reviews.

This is someone whose contract was not terminated but chose to terminate his contract with the City.  While the GJ probably should not have written their next paragraph alluding to what this all means, but I mean, we all know what it means though.

Anyway there have been some attempts to discredit the consultant referenced above by dragging out an old 2015 article about his resignation from the very firm that was hired to help out with the City Manager performance review last year.  I found a slightly different article which was more illuminating as to what the issue was and why it is more nuanced than the headline alone, from the Marin IJ:

A former San Rafael city manager has settled a lawsuit claiming he violated an anti-corruption law stemming from his term as Santa Monica’s city manager.

Rod Gould denies wrongdoing, but said he does not have the resources to defend himself against a lawsuit that essentially involves a governance dispute in a city he no longer works for.

He also accused the city, particularly the Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office, of advising him his actions were legally sound and then failing to back him up after he was challenged.

The lawsuit was brought by the Santa Monica Transparency Project, a citizens’ watchdog group dedicated to enforcing the anti-corruption law. The law, known as the Oaks Initiative, is an amendment to the city charter that restricts the terms under which former city officials can accept employment offers.

…

Gould said he received assurances from both the city attorney’s office and the International City/County Management Association, a professional organization, that accepting the position with Management Partners was neither a legal violation nor an ethical one.

He also said the Oaks Initiative was intended as a campaign finance reform that might not apply to city employees, and that it has proved unenforceable at any level. He said the city attorney’s office in Santa Monica has told the City Council that the amendment is probably unconstitutional.

Gould took a leave of absence from his part-time position at the consulting firm until the litigation was resolved. Under the settlement, he agreed to give up his job, abide by the Oaks restrictions through Jan. 31, 2017, and pay the plaintiffs $20,000 for legal costs.

I’ll point out that this has happened in Alameda too when former City Attorney Teresa Highsmith accepted a position at a firm that had recently completed a contract with the City of Alameda.  She is now a partner at that law firm.

And more:

On Friday, Gould sent a letter to the Santa Monica City Council chastising the city attorney’s office for its poor legal advice. He also urged the City Council to adopt a series of reforms to prevent such legal jams for city officials in the future, such as a clarification of who falls under the Oaks Initiative and Oaks-related training for city employees.

“That lawsuit has put me in the middle of a dispute between the City and the Charter proponents over enforcement of the Oaks Initiative Charter Amendment,” he wrote. “Yet the City has refused to participate in the lawsuit or otherwise seek a judicial determination that its interpretation of the Oaks Initiative is correct and that the measure does not apply to employees. That puts employees like me, who relied on the City’s prior position, in an untenable position.”

It appears as though the lawsuit for, according to a different piece, what amounted to part time work was largely a political act.  In fact a local blogger noted:

However, after Oaks was passed, two trial courts found that it was unconstitutional. While those rulings were voided on appeal for procedural reasons, Gould will probably raise constitutional objections, and he may have other arguments. California law includes strong public policies in favor of a free labor market. For instance, in most circumstances California bans covenants not to compete. Courts might apply those policies against the application of Oaks when it prevents someone who hasn’t otherwise broken the law from getting a job.

So again, a much more nuanced story than one of just out and out corruption on the part of the consultant.  I don’t think that questioning the ethics of a consultant is going to be very helpful in the grand scheme of things.