Council Members Urge Suit to Reveal Details of Scandal

Admonished to keep quiet about the details surrounding the city’s secret sexual harassment settlement, some members of the San Diego City Council are privately seeking ways to force open the results of an investigation into the scandal.

Openly frustrated in their attempts to air the full story behind a hidden $100,000 payment to former planner Susan M. Bray, council members have urged reporters to sue the city as a means of obtaining a special counsel’s detailed report that focuses on the payout.

“Tell your people to sue,” one council member told The Times on Tuesday. “I suspect that, if you filed a suit, most of the council’s going to be rooting for you.”

Only Mayor Maureen O’Connor was willing to speak out Tuesday about the council’s attempt to seek public disclosure, saying the council will ask City Atty. John Witt how the information can be brought out without drawing a lawsuit.

Reporters from The Times, the San Diego Union, the Tribune and other media outlets have submitted public-records requests seeking the report of special counsel Josiah Neeper, which purportedly lays out the story of the payment approved in March by then-City Manager John Lockwood.

In a sexual harassment claim filed with the state, Bray alleged that then-Planning Director Robert Spaulding coerced her into a sexual relationship that lasted two years. Spaulding, who was forced to resign when news of the affair surfaced, has claimed that the relationship was consensual.

The suggestion to reporters that a lawsuit be filed signals the council’s desperation.

Although members say they want all the facts to come out, they have been advised by Neeper and Witt that any public comments about the issues surrounding the agreement could lead to a lawsuit from either Spaulding or Bray on the grounds that the settlement’s confidentiality clause had been violated.

“Clearly, the council wants the public to be fully apprised as to what is going on,” said one council member. “But we don’t want to give anyone the opportunity to sue us. We don’t want to spend taxpayer dollars, but we want this information out.”

The mere mention that a settlement exists constitutes a violation of the agreement the city has with Bray and could be grounds for her suit against the city, Neeper said.

Council members, of course, are not bound by any legal opinion and are free to disclose the terms of the settlement. But they apparently believe the advice of Neeper and Witt that disclosing any of the details of the agreement will leave the city liable for possible legal damage in the event Bray or Spaulding sues.

As a measure of how fearful council members are of a Bray lawsuit, all of those interviewed but O’Connor spoke on condition of anonymity, and one insisted that the following comments be addressed to a hypothetical situation only.

“You can’t trust the folks who represent you, who are supposed to work for you,” the council member said, referring to Witt and his assistants. “And it’s a very sobering and a very frightening reality. . . . John Witt has to be held accountable.”

Attorneys for the Union and Tribune said Tuesday that they were giving city officials the alloted 10 days to make the report available before taking legal action.

Tim Taylor, one of the attorneys, tried to force open Monday’s closed-session meeting, but city attorneys rejected his arguments and the council met secretly for three hours.

Anticipating that the council will conduct a closed session in two weeks when it meets again to discuss the issue, Taylor said the newspapers will ask that the June 3 meeting be open.

“This is back-room politics at its best,” said Judy Fanshaw, counsel to the Union-Tribune.

One member of the council expressed hope that, if the city is not sued, its Civil Service Commission could choose to investigate or subpoena documents as part of disciplinary hearings the council might seek against Personnel Director Rich Snapper.

Snapper, who has declined to comment, reportedly helped structure the settlement.

Council members said that as many as eight city employees could be disciplined as a result of the secret payment, including Equal Employment Investigator Larry Gardner, Risk Management Director D. Cruz Gonzalez, Deputy City Manager Bruce Herring and members of the city attorney’s office.

However, the council lacks the authority to directly punish any of those employees except Snapper, who works for the Civil Service Commission. The city’s lawyers report to Witt, who is independently elected. Gonzalez, Gardner and Herring report to City Manager Jack McGrory.

The scandal, which came to light more than a week ago, created a public furor over the expenditure of taxpayer dollars and the outright refusal of Lockwood, now a top state official in Sacramento, to reveal the settlement to his superiors on the City Council.

Bray was initially paid $19,995--just $5 below the level needed for council approval--and the nearly $80,000 balance was to be paid over the next three years.

In formalizing the arrangement, Lockwood has defended himself repeatedly by saying he was attempting to spare Spaulding’s family the embarrassment that a public exposure of the facts would bring about. For his part, Witt said he was simply following Lockwood’s orders in approving the legal wording of the settlement.

But council members have questioned the role of both men--and others--in the scandal, which has consumed City Hall in recent days. Once Neeper was assigned to investigate, members of the council, who had been open and eager to talk about the situation, cited confidentiality of personnel issues and referred all questions to Neeper.

Meanwhile, Lockwood is yet to be confirmed by the Senate for his recent appointment to run the state’s General Services Department, a 4,000-employee agency responsible for awarding contracts, acquiring supplies and building and maintaining buildings for the state.

Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside) met with Lockwood on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the appointment. Craven has agreed to spearhead the confirmation vote, and Tuesday’s meeting was set before the sex-and-hush-money scandal erupted.

Craven said Tuesday that Lockwood explained his role in the controversy, and that it has not shaken the governor’s confidence in him. Craven said he does not expect the scandal to impede Lockwood’s confirmation.

“I don’t think the administration has any different feeling today about him than it did when they appointed him,” Craven said.

Times staff writer Ralph Frammolino contributed to this report from Sacramento.