Council Refusal to Give Lawsuit Costs Assailed

The City Council last week enraged some community leaders by refusing to help one of its commissions gather information on money the city has paid out in police court cases.

The council refused a request by the Public Safety Advisory Commission to compile a list of settlements and judgments, along with itemized attorney fees, spent on defending police-related lawsuits during the last three years.

A majority of council members voted down the request Tuesday, arguing that they don’t want to burden city staff with the task of compiling the data. The information, the council argued, already is public record and commission members can dig it up themselves.

But commissioners, who are volunteers appointed by the council, said that is not their role. City staff, commissioners insisted, have an obligation to assist the commission in reviewing safety issues.

The council, on the advice of the city’s attorneys, makes all final decisions on what cases to settle out of court and for what amounts. Some council members said the commission is challenging their authority and attempting to “second-guess” their decisions.

Councilman Tom Clark disagreed with his colleagues: “I don’t think this is an unreasonable request.”

Clark, who plans to raise the issue again at Tuesday’s council meeting, predicted that to deny the request would only raise more questions. “It will appear as though we don’t want it to come out,” he said.

And that is exactly how many community leaders viewed the council’s decision.

“What are they trying to hide?” asked commission member Larry Davis.

“I think it’s atrocious,” said Alan Lowenthal, president of the Long Beach Area Citizens Involved.

Community activist Bud Huber said he is “perturbed beyond words,” and filed a letter with the city clerk Wednesday requesting the same information sought by the commission. Huber, president of the Belmont Shore Improvement Assn., said he was making the request for himself and not for the association. He called the council’s vote, “the supreme insult to the constituents.”

School board member Jerry Shultz said: “If it’s really public, they should make it readily available.”

Frank Berry, president of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said he supports the commission’s inquiry “wholeheartedly.” He said: “It is inappropriate for council members or staff members to keep the public in the dark on something that their tax dollars are used for.” NAACP officials have expressed concern over the years about allegations of racism and brutality involving Long Beach police officers.

Council members contend that they are keeping no one in the dark because, in the words of Councilwoman Jan Hall, “public information is public information.”

Hall and other council members suggested that commission members are welcome to research the information themselves. City Atty. John Calhoun, who already provided the commission with overall dollar figures, said it could take his office four months to compile the data on a case-by-case basis.

But commission members, who make recommendations to the council on safety and police matters, said it is not their job to do such research.

“I wouldn’t know what to look for. I wouldn’t know what to ask for, nor do I have the time,” commission member Barbara Shoag said after addressing the council.

Shoag told the council that the Public Safety Advisory Commission would like a breakdown of the money paid out in settlements and judgments for two reasons.

Reviewing such data would help the commission spot patterns that could lead to recommendations about policy or procedure changes within the Police Department, Shoag said.

In addition, she noted that the city’s recent settlement of a brutality case “has caused many citizens throughout the city to question the amount of taxpayer dollars” paid in settlements and judgments.

In December, the council was criticized for how it settled a $330,000 brutality lawsuit against four police officers, the largest brutality settlement ever made by the city. City officials did not handle the settlement by placing the issue on a city agenda as usual. Critics complained that the council was trying to hide the settlement, an accusation council members denied. Nonetheless, two months ago the council agreed to note publicly any final settlement approved in closed session.

Shoag said that the commission is not interested in reviewing that or any other settlement for the purpose of criticizing the council’s decisions.

“We make this request on behalf of the general citizenry. . . . After all, this is all taxpayer money and the public has a right to be informed,” Shoag told the council. “Let me make it clear that we have no interest or desire to question or challenge any of the past settlements. We know those decisions were made using yours or the city manager’s best judgment and negotiating skills.”

But the request was perceived by the council majority as a challenge.

“I have some question that you may be over-exceeding what you have been chaired to provide for the City Council and for the mayor’s office,” Mayor Ernie Kell told Shoag.

“You are getting into an area which is best left to the members of the City Council, who get full briefings,” Kell said.

Most council members, the city attorney and Assistant City Atty. Bob Shannon argued that the information the commissioners are requesting will leave out the “why” of the settlement, and that, they continued, renders the raw data confusing, if not meaningless. For example, a case may have been settled not because an officer did something wrong, but because it would cost more money to continue with the case than to simply settle it out of court, officials explained.

“A little information always brings about speculation,” Councilman Jeff Kellogg said.

Councilwoman Hall also saw the commission’s request as a potential review of council decisions: “To go back and second-guess every single decision the city has made, I see as having no purpose.”

Commissioners insist that is not their intent. Even if it were, argued Lowenthal of Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, the public “has the right to second-guess them.”

“And the idea that, ‘You are going to get confused’--confused about what?”Lowenthal asked. “It’s a policy that distrusts the public.”

The council members who voted against the commission’s request are Hall, Kellogg, Wallace Edgerton, Les Robbins and Clarence Smith. Councilmen Evan Anderson Braude and Ray Grabinski were absent for the vote, although Grabinski was present during most of the discussion and he indicated that he would not support the commission. Clark voted for it and Councilman Warren Harwood said he voted with Clark by mistake. Harwood spoke against the commission’s request consistently throughout the discussion.

This is not the first time the Public Safety Advisory Commission has hit a snag with the City Council, as Councilman Grabinski noted during Tuesday’s meeting.

“The last time this issue came up we almost had a vote on this commission, and you recall that,” Grabinski told Shoag.

In December, 1987, the council questioned whether the commission had overstepped its powers in suggesting the creation of a police civilian review board. At the time, a majority of the council vehemently opposed such a review board, and one councilman even questioned whether the council should abolish the commission.

Shoag told Grabinski: “The last thing we want to do is jeopardize the commission’s existence.”

Commissioner Ernest McBride, a longtime community activist, was incensed that the council was threatened or “embarrassed” by his group’s request. “I resent the way this council has twice insulted us,” McBride told his colleagues during their monthly meeting Wednesday night.

McBride was not the only one who made a reference to the squabble with the council in 1987, when members also questioned whether the commission was going beyond its authority. As he was walking away from their meeting Wednesday, Commissioner Allan Tebbetts quipped: “We failed the attitude test again.”