Absent City Attorney’s Letter Keeps Huntington Beach Pot Aboil

Huntington Beach City Atty. Gail Hutton, criticized by city officials this week for poor management, has mailed thousands of letters to voters accusing the City Council of cutting her yearly budget because she has not “been a ‘good girl’ politically.”

The mailers, dated April 4 and signed by Hutton, arrived this week after the revelation that her $40,000-a-year financial analyst, Walter F. Burk, had secretly held a full-time job in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for 5 1/2 months while on the Huntington Beach municipal payroll.

City Administrator Paul Cook has requested a police investigation into whether Burk, a 49-year-old La Crescenta resident, was paid by the city for days he actually was absent. That inquiry is expected to take about two weeks.

Huntington Beach Assistant City Atty. William S. Amsbary and Burk’s boss in the federal court have said Burk was granted lengthy leaves without pay to visit his mother, who he said was dying in South Dakota.

As the mailers arrived at Huntington Beach homes Friday, the controversy continued in Hutton’s absence, and Cook and City Council members queried Friday were either angry, incredulous or both.

Camping in Mexico

The 51-year-old Hutton, who was elected to the post of city attorney, has been camping this week with her family in Mexico--a vacation she began April 2, Amsbary said Friday. He said the timing of the mailers was “coincidental” and that Hutton probably “post-dated” the letters and mailed them before she left.

Hutton, who was first elected more than a decade ago to her $78,000-a-year office, has said she did not know Burk was working elsewhere, prompting Cook and members of the City Council to question her ability to manage the city’s legal office of 16 people. But Hutton, who is the only elected city attorney in Orange County and one of only a handful in California, has the autonomy of elected office, which has long been a source of friction with some city officials.

That friction was at the heart of Hutton’s mailer, which began: “Dear Friends, Each year for political reasons there is an attempt to hold my office hostage at budget time. Unless I have been a ‘good girl’ (politically) in the past year, there is an attempt to ‘spank’ during the budget process by cutting the funds available to me to perform the tasks necessary for me to do my job.

“Please help me, by communicating your thoughts on this matter to your councilpersons,” Hutton continued. “Let’s take the politics out of the city’s legal affairs. It is time for Huntington Beach to come of age and to recognize that petty politics and bureaucratic power plays have no place in ‘big city’ government.”

Cook’s Reaction

Cook, who appeared annoyed by the statements, said Hutton’s office operates on an annual budget of nearly $1 million, and employs herself and eight other attorneys plus seven clerical workers. He said Hutton is requesting two additional attorneys and an equal number of secretaries.

“I haven’t even turned her down yet,” Cook said Friday. “I guess what I find most offensive is the suggestion that I am holding her budget hostage when we haven’t really talked about it yet.”

Councilwoman Ruth Finley, after the letter was read to her, giggled heartily. “Well at least she didn’t put our home phone numbers in it. And I haven’t heard from a soul--no calls from citizens wanting more money (for Hutton). All I’ve heard from is other council persons asking if I’d read the letter,” she said.

“It’s an absolutely terrible letter. And poor judgment. I don’t know. I’m really left speechless. Every year we have a controversy over the attorney’s budget, and there’s a tug of war over it, and she fights aggressively for it,” said Finley, who has served as mayor during her two terms. “I don’t really believe there is a political plot to remove her. But she must think so.”

Burk, meanwhile, has been unavailable for comment. But Finley said he reportedly has hired the city’s employee union lawyer to represent him in the matter.

Burk quit the Huntington Beach position March 30, when Hutton confronted him with the dual-job accusation.

Burk was hired on Oct. 19 as deputy court executive, according to his federal boss, U.S. District Court Executive George Ryker. According to Ryker, he granted Burk nearly seven weeks’ leave without pay because Burk said his mother was suffering from cancer and had subsequently died.

Huntington Beach officials said that during the period he worked for the federal court, Burk was absent from his city job 40% of the time--much of it without pay. Amsbary has said that Burk told “heart-wrenching stories” about family strife and the need to take care of his mother’s affairs back East.

But Cook questioned why Hutton, and Amsbary, her office manager, did not check the validity of Burk’s story by at least asking for a telephone number to check. Amsbary, who took the blame Friday for the fiasco, said he did ask.

“He said that he had no telephone number that he could be reached at back there, and if I had to get ahold of him, I should call his number in La Crescenta,” Amsbary said.