If you were a public official, how much would you spend to keep the public from knowing you behaved improperly on camera? Especially if you knew it wasn’t your money?
According to a public record act request, the city manager and the city just spent $45,000 in taxpayer dollars for legal fees with a specialized law firm to fight the release of the body cam video and any public records information about her traffic stop (there may be many more bills to be disclosed, as the city manager has only released amounts up to April 30).
When she was finally forced to release the footage, she had a PR firm create a misleading and “contextualized” version of the video for another $5,000. How many other people get that kind of free legal help paid for by taxpayers?
Apparently, the city releases many body cam videos of traffic stops, so why not this one?
Hopefully, we will learn how much more than the $50,000 was spent if the city ever answers the latest Public Record Act request. This $50,000 billing amount was requested in February – about six months ago – and that amount was only disclosed a few weeks ago. How long will the new request for all expenses take?
By making unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations against residents at a city council meeting – calling them out by name in an attempt to silence and publicly shame them – a defamation lawsuit has been filed against the city. How much will that cost us taxpayers?
Why are we funding a private defense fund for the city manager that only benefits her, not the city or residents?
The traffic stop legal expenses. The defamation lawsuit. A recent “unidentified” claim filed against a city council member she’s opposed to. And a potential mega-payout lawsuit for mishandling the Hotel Laguna and 14West hotel hostile takeovers. All in just the last year. Are there more lawsuits in the wings involving the city manager that taxpayers will be funding? When is this going to stop?
Jerome Pudwill, Laguna Beach
Jerome, if the City would have spent half the time that was used to gin up a tortuous story that she “really didn’t lie” to the officer when she told him that she was speaking the the Police Chief we would know that the “Fishy Feces” saga where someone smeared the CM’s house with fish fertilizer was not perpetrated by Village Laguna or its supporters. And after what we have seen in the past three months with CM’s accommodations of Hornarkar the Chief of Police would do well to look at other groups. Unless of course he has already put it in the cold case file hoping the incident will be forgotten.
Strange how upset and aghast Ray, Whalen, the Democratic club leadership, Quilter and all those others were when the “Fishy Feces” escapade occurred. And contrast that with the deafening silence when MO with his armed thugs criminally trespassed into two properties that he did not own and caused damage orders of magnitude more than the clean up of the fish fertilizer. The police actually witnessed the damage in progress. The amount of the damage was a felony punishable by up to one year in prison and up to $50,000 fine for each participant. Yet instead of police arresting the thugs as required per section 100.2.2 of the Laguna Beach PD Manual they were more like Keystone Cops. Clearly thanks to the CM, Whalen, the City Attorney and Kempf who all had the legal documents to show that Hornarkar did not own the properties their instructions to the police must have been to not arrest anyone, especially their friend Mo. Else why would the police go against the requirements of their manual? The only way to get at the bottom of this continuing miscarriage of justice is for MOM to sue the city. Whatever the cost of the lawsuit and the damage award would, in the long run, save the residents money as these continuing multimillion dollar gifts to their friends now proposed would be greatly diminished. And of course we would be on the road to an honest and transparent city government.
God forbid our City Manager dare to stand up to the loudmouth town bullies. Frankly, I’d be willing to pay her legal fund if she does it every meeting.
Have mercy Lord on this town, and deliver us from the evil that plagues our town meetings and these letters to the editor!
When is this going to stop, you ask? When you and your ilk stop the harassment campaign and practice gratitude for your embarrassment of riches.
Doug and Billy – two business owners tickled to death with the corrupt City mismanagement that favors businesses at residents’ expense.
Criticism ≠ harassment.
Doug – please pony up the $50,000 you said you’re glad to pay. I’ll let you know the balance due if she ever quits hiding those amounts.
Jerome,
I understand how sad it is to not have your Next Door platform currently to spread hate and lies. I’ll pony up 50k for the moving expenses when you finally get tired of the town not being your very own ghost town.
Jerome you are the ones causing the taxpayer burden in money and oxygen by making us suffer through this endless, Benghazi / Hunter’s laptop / PizzaGate campaign that long ago exonerated our City Manager. It’s pure political theater.
And nice try once again trying to divide and polarize our town between business and residents, as if it’s a zero sum game. Sorry, but I’m both a businessman and a resident. Like many others. And the job of any city manager is to help both, because they depend and are interconnected to one another.
Billy, not to mention the thousands of hours of staff time spent going through Freedom of Information Act requests, paying attorney legal bills because the bullies don’t like being named from the pulpit, investigations into wrongful conduct by councilmember Weiss and his abusive staff and brown act violations, and the hundreds of thousands spent on weak initiatives that the public handedly shot down.
If there was ever an example of pot calling the kettle black, this one broke the pot mold.
I hope Laguna residents see these nuisance complaints every week in this paper like we do.
Billy and Doug – As long as we have inept and corrupt City management, you can depend on others to criticize it.
Sorry – accusing the accuser is such a hackneyed excuse, boys, it just doesn’t work any more. Especially given the blatant biased mismanagement and potential multimillion dollar lawsuits which you are endorsing.
Doug and Billy, citizens have the right to question government officials, and those who get paid with our tax dollars, something, you Billy, are not doing because you don’t live in Laguna Beach city limits. It seems to me that you two keep trying to stop those who are involved with our city and that care the direction that the manager and two of the council members are taking our town.
Citizens have the right to question, but bot continually abuse staff and citizens like myself who don’t agree with you making threats and using intimidation. Sounds like I’m talking about Peter Blake, I’m not. As they say…takes a bully to know a bully.
I stand up to bullies.
Vogel, you stand up to bullies…LOL A person that questions the happenings of a city manager that they are paying huge $$$$ too, do not deserve an answer? seriously, When in this once great country of ours, could we not ask a hired so called official a question? so that makes a person a bully, what you don’t understand is that the question was asked nicely and it was never answered, still hasn’t been answered, but instead of, standing up as a professional, and say I made a mistake, which would take a HONEST person to do, instead the people waited and waited and waited for results and public information and then got (after much haggling) a duped up video and huge attorney fees, yeah that sounds like you are asking the right questions….You sound like the bully, you are bullying people that stand for their rights..face it you have an agenda..gee, I hope you were finally accepted by the group you are so willing to sacrifice your integrity for…you got it wrong buddy!
Has anyone else noticed a certain trend lately? From City Hall on down, people claiming they’re being victimized by bullies when they themselves are bullies? The old persecution complex seems to be pretty rampant lately. Come to think of it, isn’t accusing others of being bullies a form of intimidation and bullying? Sure seems that way to me.
Hi Barbara Brook G,
Citizens should always be involved and hold accountability over elected officials and local government staff. What they should not do is get personal about them in nature, harass them publicly instead of asking questions, yell at their faces at council meetings, create lies and false narratives about them, and say and write xenophobic comments about them. That is bullying and intimidation and it is a federal offense to use intimidation tactics in order to prevent individuals from participating in the political process. While there are probably some things I could agree with you on, it is the method and tactics of how many of you deal with this that I find repulsive. I am pretty sure majority of the residents feel the same way which is why they voted down measure q. They saw through the lies.
In my case, you and your fellow commenters above have bullied my family, used intimidation and threats, tried to report us and get us kicked off social media pages so that we cannot participate in the political process, and worst of all use the loss of our daughter as your own personal gain sending disgusting text messages.
There is low and then there is really low. And I am one in this community that has had enough of this.
Jerome, anytime you want to have a public debate about bullying or anything having to do with policy in our city, I’ll meet you there. I’m sure there are a couple radio stations that will moderate this. I for one, have never bullied you, actually came out to a house to hear you make your pitch for council, complimented you on issues, and gave your campaign manager MJ Abraham helpful advice, which she acknowledged and thanked me for.
You are not a victim.
Well, Billy and Doug the CM is gone! Jerome, the answer to Your “Original Question” When is it Going to Stop”? It appears 08/24/2023. Although it was/is quite costly to remove the CM it appears the City of Laguna Beach can now move forward without a CM who has cost our city so dearly in a monetary sense as well as integrity/credibility.
Today is a Great Day in Laguna Beach!
The City Manager vacancy, finally a personified application for Artificial Intelligence.