ABSTRACT: The City Council authorized the expenditure of $250,000 to the Pebble Beach Company in an attempt to avoid stormwater obligations and authorized and/or has authorized nearly $350,000 to attorneys, consultants, et cetera, in an attempt to sell the National Register of Historic Places Flanders Mansion. Both resulted in failure. All in all, a colossal waste of taxpayer money!
Within the last 2 ½ years, the City Council of the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea has authorized the expenditure of $250,000 to the Pebble Beach Company for “legal costs associated with the Areas of Special Biological Significance Cease and Desist Order” and has likewise authorized the expenditure and/or agreed to the expenditure of $347,637.34 in professional fees associated with the City Council’s decision to sell the Flanders Mansion property.
The $250,000 expenditure to Pebble Beach for legal fees to the law firm Latham and Watkins, LLP, resulted in the denial of a waiver for the City’s stormwater runoff obligations. As of September 11, 2007, “Staff is investigating the cost for filing an exception as well as working with the cities of Monterey, Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach Company to meet with the WRCB Director to further discuss the ASBS discharge requirements.”
The nearly $350,000 in fees associated with the City Council’s attempt to sell the National Register of Historic Places Flanders Mansion property has resulted in a verdict by a Superior Court judge informing the city of the city’s multiple legal violations, including violations of the California Environmental Quality Act, California Government Code and the City’s Municipal Code. And, if the City Council continues in their attempt to sell the Flanders Mansion property, the prospect of additional consultant and legal costs associated with proving the lease option is “economically infeasibility.”
What a Colossal Waste!
REFERENCES:
113419 7/10/07 PEBBLE BEACH COMPANY $ 125,000.00 STORMWATER ISSUE LEGAL EXPENSES-FINAL PAYM
(Source: July 2007 Check Register)
111443 9/19/2006 PEBBLE BEACH COMPANY 125,000.00 ATTORNEY FEES - STORMWATER ISSUE
(Source: September 2006 Check Register)
$160,000: Susan Brandt-Hawley, Attorney for Flanders Foundation
$83,448: William B. Conners, Special Counsel for the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea
(Source: City won't appeal Flanders decision - Preservationists' attorney to get $160K, MARY BROWNFIELD, October 12, 2007)
3 comments:
Mismanagement. Incompetance. Arrogance. Corruption. Some of the reasons for the city's waste of taxpayer funds. Rich has become so misguided in what the job of city manager is and so subservient to Mayor Sue, he cannot perform adequately. We do not need his incompetance any longer. It's bad for everyone.
Indeed! The Carmel City Council, led by Mayor Sue McCloud, is happy to waste money for studies on which it never follows up and those that never see the light of day. It is also seemingly eager to authorize legal expenditures on suits that support its members' philisophocal bent even if the position appears to have little legal merit on its face or isn't in the best interests of the people who live and work in Carmel. Perhaps they hope their opponents will run out of money before the City loses these suits. City Council members are tight with funding that would benefit the City, even though they have the funds on hand, but profligate with funds for pet projects and unecessary law suits.
The city council, evidentally, does not like to be told what to do by the state - favoring the least government interference possible in both its own affairs and those of the private sector (unless that interference is being carried out by the council itself). It is also, of course, in favor of minimizing government spending and the state is trying to get Carmel to spend money. It's money the city can afford to spend but money council members would rather put into the city's overflowing reserves. The other side of this coin is that city council members, Mayor McCloud in particular, are demonstrating how unimportant keeping the beach and ocean clean is to them. This despite the fact that these are two of the reasons Carmel attracts so many tourists and that tourism is what drives Carmel's economy.
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