The City Council meeting of Tuesday, May 29 showed on the agenda that the citizen complaint to the city attorney’s office in regard to violation of the Brown Act would be dealt with during the closed session. The statement read by the city attorney’s office at the meeting follows;
“The City Council met in closed session regarding item CS-3, which concerned a May 14th letter from Peter Jacobs, et al., submitted to the City pursuant to Government Code Section 54960.1. The letter demanded the City Council cure or correct its April 30th actions related to the election of the Mayor and Vice Mayor, which complainants allege were taken in violation of the Brown Act.
The City Council has determined that no Brown Act violations occurred; therefore, there is no need to cure or correct its actions. The Council has directed me, the City Attorney, to prepare a written response to Mr. Jacobs, et al., in accordance with such determination.”
No further comment was available from City Attorney Carol Schwab or Assistant City Attorney Heather Baker.
Judith Martin-Straw
It is important to read this carefully. It is not that an independent person adjudged whether there was or was not a Brown Act violation. All that happened is that the City Council met in closed session, discussed the matter, then voted on how to direct the city attorney to act.
In this case, the city attorney was directed to write a response that there was no Brown Act violation and therefore no need to cure. The city is the client, and the attorney works for the city. It is analogous to a defendant in a criminal case declaring not guilty, or a company instructing its attorney to claim innocence in face of a law suit.
BTW, thank you Judith for creating a proper headline.
You are welcome – I do enjoy committing journalism whenever possible.
This is like Donald Trump saying that there was “no collusion, end of investigation.” How does this happen in Culver City? We need a transparent independent investigation.