Apples and oranges—Councilmember Mary Ann Nihart’s reply to Past Councilmember Vi Gotelli in the Pacifica Tribune letters-to-the-editor 10-14-09 was consistent with correct budget information from Past Councilmember Vi Gotelli.
Councilmember Mary Ann Nihart considered the city legal department cost for one employee ($174,540 + benefits), Cecilia Quick, from public employee salary information; whereas, Past Councilmember Vi Gotelli considered the total city legal department cost, including two employees ($255,300 + benefits), from the City of Pacifica 2009-10 budget information.
Past Councilmember Vi Gotelli provided a more extensive overview of our city legal budget, including retirement benefits of $70,000, and other benefits of $41,900. Outside attorneys this year are budgeted at $180,000, a reduction from about $500,000 each year for the prior four years.
A good reference for public employee salaries and other compensation is provided by the Contra Costa Times, included in Councilmember Mary Ann Nihart's letter.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/public-employee-salaries#results
Posted by Kathy Meeh
12 comments:
Keep in mind that the outside attorney budget is a more a projection than a limit.
If we were unlucky enough to have another serial litigator like North Pacifica LLC come along, that number would balloon as it did in the past.
Correct Lionel, the legal budget is an "open door", and if the city continues to pick necessary or as we've seen a series of unnecessary fights the cost goes up.
Apples and oranges? Sounds a lot more like sour grapes...
Lionel,
Past practice has been to stick budget authorizations to the City Attorney on the Consent Calendar (much like all these council benefit extensions have been). I would like to see the City Attorney be given a limited budget for contract attorneys and all additional authorizations be presented on the Consideration Calendar and vetted by the public.
Whatever your feelings about Keith Fromm and North Pacifica LLC, there were several underlying issues exacerbated by City Council, Planning, City Attorney, and the Coastal Commission Appeal by John Curtis that contributed to the filing of the Fish & Bowl lawsuits.
Even ABAG initially refused to contribute to the legal defense of Pacifica.
It's not "feelings", Jeff.
I looked at the court documents.
The only question I had after looking through hundreds of pages was: Did Mr. Fromm ever have any intention of developing the property, or at some point did he decide it would be more fun to own a city?
We got lucky, and spent lots of money in the process. I hope the city goes after him to get some of it back when the last case (there's one left!) is settled
well I guess the question is then, with the "Save the Fish and Bowl" movement, the city's refusal to deal with an access road, the "joint and several liability" clause that was inserted into the approved development permit, the John Curtis appeal to the Coastal Commission . . . did the city ever have any intention of allowing Mr. Fromm to develop the property?
I agree Pacifica got lucky, but it does not appear as if the city learned anything from the experience. Not sure if you read the ABAG decision, but my reading is that any more money the city may or may not get out of North Pacific LLC will go to ABAG, not Pacifica. We're tapped on recouping legal fees, from what I can tell.
I'm going to disagree with Lionel on this one. Fromm had a different interpretation of events, as the following link indicates. (Why can't we do links directly from comments with blogspot?)
http://www.pacificariptide.com/pacifica_riptide/2008/03/clarificationco.html
It's too hard for me to believe Fromm came to Pacifica with no intention of developing the property, but rather had a plan to sue the city from the start. I've only been peripherally involved with a lawsuit, but even that took up a huge amount of my time and was very distracting.
My view of all this was that Fromm was initially given the ok to get going with the project, and when the no-growthers saw that he was actually going to carry through with it, they had the city raise all kinds of roadblocks to keep Fromm from proceeding.
This has been the pattern with most development proposals in Pacifica. A developer proposes something, gets a preliminary ok from the city, and starts to spend money to make it happen. The hippies realize he's serious, and then they go running to the City Attorney/Planning Commission/City Council to try to come up with a way to stop him. (Please excuse the sexist assumption that it's a him.)
City council didn't pass the "joint and several liability clause" with the project. The "joint and several liability clause was added as a "poison pill" by city legal there following. Of course, standard issue home insurance carriers wouldn't write a policy which includes jointly insuring all your neighbors homes including their liability. A surplus writer (such as Lloyds of London) might write such a risk at a very high price, and without the benefits of a standard policy.
The bottom line is the City Attorney has been given a "blank check" to dole out to her lawyer pals on her rolodex. Cecilia Quick has NEVER set foot in a court room on behalf of the City of Pacifica. Her cheerleaders like Todd Bray conveniently ignore the fact that it's not "Way to go, Cecilia!"
Its: "Way to go, Howard, Rome, Martin, & Ridley!"
or: "Way to go, Lombardi, Loeper, and Conant, LLP!"
or: "Way to go, McDonough, Holland, and Allen!"
It's my understanding that the city won a large settlement from ABAG, which failed in its responsibility to help defend the city from this serial litigator.
No. Pacifica LLC sued the city, the Planning Comm., two council members, the Coastal Comm., individual CC members, John Curtis, etc. ad nauseum.
The weirdest suit I saw was the one where an adjacent property owner was sued by NPLLC to fork over their property because they had supposedly "abandoned" it through disuse.
The judge rejected that, and with two other exceptions, all the other justices rejected the arguments of the plaintiffs in all of these lawsuits.
The reasoning of the plaintiff's attornies was laughable in several cases I looked at -- and from the way they got spanked by the judges who pointed out the basic flaws and/or the plaintiff's misinterpretation of the law, NPLLC looked incompetent.
So no, there's no way this one hangs on the list of things which are supposedly the city's fault.
Keith Fromm lawsuit against the city confusing? North Pacifica,LLC was denied access to build his property. Although Fromm won an approximate $5 million judgment in San Mateo Superior Court, it was overturned on appeal. The city and "friends" used every access to fight this developer from building, even though his project was approved without encumbrance by city council.
Same old story here-- I'm sure Fromm also got his request to donate his property to "open space" and take the tax deduction. Some developers quit and leave, some sue, others go bankrupt and/or all of the above.
Lionel,
I'll agree with you that some of his lawsuits were just petty and vengeful. He did win judgments at the county level which were overturned on appeal. I guess what we're having is a "chicken or the egg" discussion, and I have a hard time believing that if Keith Fromm had an unencumbered development permit in hand, he still would have sued. More to the point is that the joint and several liability clause, combined with the John Curtis Coastal Commission appeal, combined with the probably 2-3 year fight (at exorbitant cost) just to get a permit . . . there's no doubt Fromm snapped, but to hold the city blameless is like being the hockey ref who ignores the initial hit and calls the penalty on the retaliation.
To call Fromm a "serial litigator" is a bit like calling Chop Keenan a "predatory developer" over the Beachwood affair. Developers purchase land that is zoned for development with the intent to develop and make a profit. They did if for every single house and building in Pacifica.
In regards to ABAG, Pacifica was part of their Pooled Liability Assurance Network (PLAN) and ABAG initially denied the claim for assistance. It would roughly be the equivalent of your car insurance company denying coverage for an accident they decided was your fault (though it is a bit more complicated than that, but that's the general idea). Pacifica sued ABAG and prevailed in the initial ruling. If you read the ruling, the judge basically said Pacifica was at fault, but that didn't allow ABAG to deny coverage.
Instead of appealing, ABAG agreed to a settlement of about $3.4 million, with the caveat that Pacifica could not ask for more money in regards to the Fish and Bowl lawsuit, and that any further legal fees Pacifica was able to recoup would go to ABAG, not Pacifica. My honest assessment of talking to ABAG in the aftermath of the Beachwood settlement in Half Moon Bay was they'd more likely expel Pacifica than defend the city if another lawsuit of that magnitude occurred.
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