UPDATE ON TAXPAYER EXPENDITUTES TO STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH, PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL, FOR CITY RESPONSES TO PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUESTS (October 2013 – May 2014)

ABSTRACT: After scapegoating attorney Heather Coffman, Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, for City Administrator Jason Stilwell’s handling of Public Records Act requests, City Administrator Jason Stilwell hired the law firm Stradling Yocca Carlson Rauth to advise the City on City Responses to Public Records Act requests. As of the City’s May 2014 Check Register, between May 2013 and May 2014, a total of $188,497.93 has been expended to Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, according to City Check Registers. STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH Check Register items are reproduced. In Summary, total expenditures per month:
May 2014: $58,910.16
April 2014: $45,003.56
February 2014: $30,883.71
January 2014: $35,082.00
December 2013: $12,166.00
November 2013: $4,185.00
October 2013: $2,267.50
TOTAL: $188,497.93

City’s Check Register Entries for STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH, PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL, California Public Records Act Requests, (October 2013-February 2014)

128363 5/9/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $20,307.75 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128363 5/9/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $9,230.79 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128363 5/9/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $1,515.50 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128363 5/9/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $79.00 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128464 5/30/2014 STRADLING YDCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $330.00 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128464 5/30/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $91.87 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128464 5/30/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $17,581.75 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128464 5/30/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $8,232.00 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128464 S/30/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $ 1,540.50 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
Vendor Total -···>$58,910.16

128178 4/11/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $ 36,140.56 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128178 4/11/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $ 5,347.50 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128178 4/11/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $ 2,449.00 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
128178 4/11/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH s 1,066.50 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
Vendor Total -·-··> $45,003.56

127819 2/5/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $30,883.71 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
Vendor Total--->$30,883.71

127678 1/9/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $23,192.50 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
127678 1/9/2014 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $11,889.50 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
Vendor Total ----->$35,082.00

127469 12/6/2013 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $12,166.00 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
Vendor Total ----->$12,166.00

127373 11/14/2013 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $ 4,185.00 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
Vendor Total --->$4,185.00

127202 10/10/2013 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH $ 2,267.50 01 61051 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES-LEGAL
Vendor Total---->$2,267.50

COMMENTARY: Pertinent to the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea, since the City Council's hiring of City Administrator Jason Stilwell and Stilwell's subsequent hiring of Administrative Services Director Susan Paul in 2013, is the content expressed in the article entitled “Government officials should listen to voters instead of lawyers selling strategies for blocking access to information" By Peter Scheer • March 23, 2014, FIRST AMENDMENT COALITION, as follows: “The original promise of the PRA–of using information about government to hold government accountable–is thwarted when public officials, instead of listening to voters, listen to lawyers selling work-arounds to the PRA.” Moreover, “But some efforts to withhold information are more dangerous to democracy than others. The most dangerous are government lying (about the existence of documents, for example), particularly in circumstances where officials lie with impunity. Almost as dangerous, but less obviously so, are situations in which government agencies restructure the way they do business for the sole purpose of gaining legal cover to deny requests for information .”  “Another example: Local governments that hire a law firm not primarily for legal advice or legal representation, but to perform the nonlegal function of management consulting, typically on a specific transaction. Why would government officials do that? Certainly not to save money or to get superior business or technical advice. No, a local government would do this so that all communications with its advisers, all information exchanged with them, and all expert reports or analyses commissioned for the city’s use in deciding whether to go forward with a transaction, and selling that decision to voters, can be characterized—fairly or not— as covered by the attorney-client privilege. That label effectively immunizes all records from FOI laws.”