NO ACCOUNTABILITY: Public Service In Carmel-by-the-Sea

Regular Meeting
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
4:30 p.m., Open Session

VII. Consent Calendar

G. Consideration of a Resolution accepting a gift of $40,000 from the Friends of the Carmel Fire House, Inc. for the Carmel Fire Station.


At the City Council meeting, City Councilman Michael Cunningham pulled the above item from the Consent Calendar. At the end of the meeting, the following verbal exchange occurred between City Councilmen Michael Cunningham, Erik Bethel and City Attorney Don Freeman, and City Council Members Gerard Rose and Paula Hazdovac.

Cunningham: This issue has some history...There is legal risk associated with certain activities that we deemed, some time ago, as being significant enough that we shouldn’t accept the money. Now, we’re asked to decide whether we should accept the money and it seems to me one piece of that is, has the legal risk changed in any way between then and now.

Freeman: No, the legal position has not changed. We have one legal opinion from (inaudible) and one from ourselves and neither has changed.

After the Public Comment period was closed:

McCloud: I don’t have the number of calendars that they sold...several thousand...

Bethel: I think the issue isn’t the number of calendars they sold, but rather to Mike’s earlier point, what’s changed between last year, when this issue was under discussion, and now? What’s changed legally and is the City at risk for a potential lawsuit? I think that’s the big issue.

ROSE: I’ll move adoption of the Resolution.

Hazdovac: I’ll second.

ROLL CALL VOTE: 3-2
AYES: HAZDOVAC, ROSE, MCCLOUD
NOES: BETHEL, CUNNINGHAM


COMMENTS:

• By analogy, during the Public Hearing for the Business License tax increase ballot measure, after City Attorney Freeman explained that the Resolution was written as a General Fund measure requiring a simple majority for passage, not a Special Tax measure requiring a 2/3 vote for passage, the following exchange occurred:

Bethel: On a final note, I would seriously encourage Council to consider where the money goes, I know it’s going into the General Fund, but let’s use it to stimulate economic activity.

McCloud: (Laughter) So much for your advise Don. (Laugh)

McCloud laughs at the expense of both City Councilman Bethel and City Attorney Freeman, and yet she herself did not follow the legal advice of the City Attorney and another independent law firm who advised the City not accept $40,000 from the Friends of the Carmel Fire House, Inc. (aka Calendar Girls).

• Notice that the reasons behind the questions raised by City Councilmen Cunningham and Bethel were never addressed by either Mayor McCloud, City Council Members Rose or Hazdovac; that is, why did Mayor McCloud reject legal advice, paid by Carmel-by-the-Sea taxpayers, and potentially put the City in needless legal jeopardy by accepting the $40,000 from the Carmel Fire Belles? Obviously, Mayor McCloud, Councilman Rose and Councilwoman Hazdovac feel they have no accountability to two of their own colleagues on the City Council, not to mention their constituents.