skulduggery at city hall

March 11, 2018  Oxnard California

the Oxnard City Attorney placed this item in closed session because “the public is better served by doing so”;

 the decision to place those items in 'closed session' agenda comes from the city attorney, who's belief is that certain types of information is best kept secret and away from the public.

One such example is the "audit" conducted by NBS on the landscape lighting assessment districts, which was reported to the city council in closed session. The reason that the City Attorney appropriated that financial report and cloaked it in secrecy under "attorney client privilege", was to 'protect' the municipal organization from the citizens' litigation that would have resulted if the public found out that the money collected from the annual assessments on the property tax bills had been used for purposes other than the reasons given for charging those fees and that the method of setting the fees was flawed.

The Mayor and Council have all run on platforms of wanting “open and transparent” government, but when that means telling Oxnard citizens the truth about how our tax dollars were spent that platform is forgotten.

Having attended many closed session’s of city council meetings
I know the closed session portion of the meeting often starts with the City Attorney warning the Mayor, Council members and those in attendance that when he alone decides to put something in closed session
every one in attendance is under his decision and must keep silent about everything they see and hear in those closed sessions.

Sometimes it is necessary to recall the past so that we do not make the same mistake again. So attached is a U.S. Appellate Court decision that addresses the following issues about talks of a financial nature cloaked in closed sessions of the city council:

In the short 4 page decision of the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals the Court identified that the city (city attorney) erred in making the following decisions:
1. assuming discussions in closed sessions cannot be protected by the First Amendment.
2. did not recognize that some council members engineered a “sweetheart deal” with developers.
3. forgot that comments made by an employee that are of a financial nature are of public concern and entitled to “special protection” under the law.
4. by wrongfully hoping that the comments made in closed session would change the courts opinion and,
5. even if they took the side of the city attorney, the court still agreed with the employee that the city manager’s belief were not enough to prove disruption.

So We the People have to decide whether it is more important to protect citizens rights to know the truth however uncomfortable that may be, or  allow an appointed employee to shield those truths from us in order to protect the municipal organization from the very citizens who define the City of Oxnard. Now the Mayor and Councilmembers in office are in a tough position, but that is why they ran for office; they too need to decide who do they represent, the City Attorney, who they can overrule, or the citizens who put them in office.

This and other issues has led to a recall election on May 1, 2018.
Those up for recall are -- Mayor Tim Flynn, Mayor Pro Tem Carmen Ramirez, council members Bert Perello and Oscar Madrigal, four out of the five members.

Separating the wheat from the chaff