ABSTRACT: HIGHLIGHTS of attorney Michael Stamp’s letter to the editor, "Don’t blame the victim,” The Carmel Pine Cone, April 22, 2011, in response to the “Editorial: The benefits of suing yourself,” (April 15, 2011), are presented. Significantly, Stamp concluded: “This is no way to run a city. As long as the city and The Pine Cone blame the victim, the city will be at risk.”
HIGHLIGHTS:
• “Your April 15 editorial hits a new low in blaming victims for being victimized. It gets the facts wrong, it gets the law wrong, and it tries to cover up for the mayor.”
• “ First, Guillen is to blame. He voluntarily engaged in a pattern of conduct that cost the city $600,000 because his conduct was not defensible.”
• “And when the human resources director went directly to the mayor and city council and asked for protection, the mayor and council allowed Guillen to control his own investigation. Guillen stonewalled the city and the investigator, denied everything, claimed that he had never sent the scores of harassing emails and hid behind the mayor. Eventually, the taxpayers paid for Guillen’s conduct and the broken promises of the mayor and city council.”
• “This is no way to run a city. As long as the city and The Pine Cone blame the victim, the city will be at risk.”
Source: “Don’t blame the victim,” Michael Stamp, Monterey, Letters to the Editor, The Carmel Pine Cone, April 22, 2011, pg. 22A
3 comments:
I am surprised that Paul Miller published this letter. Not only that, in his Editor's Note following the letter, he validated its contents by identifying Michael Stamp as Jane Miller's attorney. Who better to know the details of what was going on at City Hall and the truth behind the lawsuit than Michael Stamp.
Here's another observation about the Pine Cone publisher:
"Paul Miller had the biggest Carmel story in a generation sitting on his doorstep, and first he missed it completely, and then he didn't have the skills or ability to cover it.
He still doesn't understand the significance of Guillen's false statements to the investigator -- when your top official does not tell the truth in an important investigation, and everyone knows it, how can you have a credible investigation? And if your investigator never asks for the emails (from Miller or from Guillen), and if she in fact ignores the offers to provide them to her, what was her goal? Accuracy? completeness? Honesty? And the encouragement and enabling acts of the Mayor and the Council, and the cheerleading by Heidi Burch, and the pay raise in the midst of the investigation, and it goes on and on.
Where was the PIne Cone on all this? It was rehashing what other papers said. It was accepting the City's claim that the Public Records Act did not allow for disclosure, which is 180 degrees off. It was trying to blame the victim when there was no basis for the blame."
No Justice
I am surprised that Michael Stamp wrote a letter to the editor. He had fulfilled his professional obligations to his client and he had been paid for his legal services. I commend him for writing. Of course, had the case gone to trial, known facts would be more widely publicized and unknown and inconvenient facts would have come out so that it would have been more difficult if not impossible for the mayor and the city to claim no liability or wrongdoing. All parties must have known that the signing of a settlement agreement would allow the city to legally claim no wrongdoing and that is exactly what the mayor has done. The mayor shamelessly turns a former employee into a villain and Paul Miller is only to happy to serve as a megaphone for her delusional and distorted point of view. In many ways it is worse now than before. Everyone who cares now knows the pertinent facts, the council had cause to fire Guillen for lying and incompetence and didn’t, the main culprit mayor is still in charge and we have our golden boy council member concerned about not being tainted by the council’s actions and ending up covering for the entire council to protect his own future political ambitions. And so on and so on.
Former City Administrator Rich Guillen is not the only person at city hall with a record of "stonewalling," denying everything and claiming he did not do anything wrong. Look around. We have "Female B," the city spokesperson for the city's motion to disqualify Michael Stamp sitting pretty right next to the interim city administrator, Molly Laughlin, brought in after being dumped by PG to replace Jane Miller and friend of "Female A" and the cast of council characters so out of touch with reality they think they can appear earnest and everything will be business as usual.
We should blame the council members and accomplice city employees and acquiesent public for tolerating the unacceptable and not make ourselves feel good by believing Paul Miller and Sue McCloud and blame Jane Miller.
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