Orange Still Undecided on Chief’s Fate

In a surprise move at a packed City Council meeting Tuesday, Councilman Dan Slater revealed an internal memo indicating complaints against Police Chief John R. Robertson had been solicited by the city manager and other top officials. Slater said the personnel department memo “describes how the complaints were used in a carefully orchestrated manner to bury” the police chief.

Robertson, 46, has been on paid administrative leave since Oct. 15, when city officials began investigating complaints by police officers that he created a hostile workplace, among 13 other charges.

City Manager David L. Rudat denied that the employee complaints were solicited, and said he and other officials had met with the complainants merely to join them into one investigation.

“Every employee has the right to file a complaint,” Rudat said, objecting that his “honor and integrity were being slapped around once again.”

The City Council went into closed session to decide whether it should follow Rudat’s recommendation and fire Robertson. Council members had not reached a decision by late Tuesday night.

The majority on the council appeared to accept the recommendation of Rudat, himself the target of a conflict-of-interest investigation by the district attorney’s office, despite a hearing officer’s report that said the city will have a hard time legally justifying the action.

The vote will end one phase of a four-month ordeal that already has cost the city $90,000 in attorney fees, with more bills rolling in, said City Attorney David A. De Berry.

Rudat has said he simply has lost confidence in Robertson after the chief began running background checks on City Council members and other officials to find out who leaked a sealed search warrant affidavit to the press.

That affidavit gave details of the ongoing investigation of the city’s trash and recycling companies.

The Police Department began investigating allegations last April that millions of dollars in municipal funds may have been embezzled by Jeffery Hambarian, who headed the recycling firm. He and his attorney have refused to comment on the case, now being pursued by the district attorney’s office.

After Robertson’s suspension, De Berry said the chief had launched an investigation of the leak, despite advice from the district attorney’s office that the leak was not a crime and would not be prosecuted.

In recent weeks, the district attorney’s office has challenged De Berry’s version of events, saying Robertson was never told to stop pursuing the case.

Meanwhile, it was learned that the district attorney’s office was contemplating conflict-of-interest charges against the city manager, who continued to make decisions about the trash investigation after his wife earned a $13,735 commission for listing and selling the home of Hambarian, the chief target of the police investigation.

State law requires that public officials who directly or indirectly receive income of more than $250 from a contractor such as Hambarian abstain from influencing any official decisions for the following 12 months that could affect that contractor. In a confidential memo to the district attorney in September, the city attorney reported that Rudat had violated state conflict-of-interest laws at least 13 times.

After Robertson was placed on leave last fall, the city hired two independent law firms to investigate the charges against him and later hired hearing officer Edward Kreins, a former Beverly Hills police chief and city manager, who read through the 2,000 pages of testimony and reports and interviewed Robertson.

Kreins cleared Robertson of 11 of the 14 charges that had been leveled against him, but said he showed a lapse in judgment by investigating his bosses and not turning over the case immediately to the district attorney or another outside agency. Robertson also erred in briefing a council member about the investigation against Rudat’s orders, Kreins said.

While conceding the difficulty of restoring the breach of confidence, Kreins said that firing Robertson would not solve the problems at the Police Department.

“I believe that if the chief of police is terminated, the same problems will continue to exist,” Kreins wrote in the conclusion to his 24-page report. “Personnel will still debate the philosophy and style of a new chief of police, the police association will still take sides, police staff will still have a problem with a new chief one way or another and the city organization will continue to be divided, depending upon which side one represents on the original issues.”

As for dismissal, Kreins concluded that “based upon my review to date, I believe that termination of the chief of police will be difficult to sustain.”

A number of police officers showed up at the meeting to encourage the council to fire Robertson.

Larry Pore, president of the City of Orange Police Management Assn., said he conducted a poll of his membership and found that 79% felt Robertson would be ineffective if he were reinstated.

But supporters, who have worn orange ribbons to protest Robertson’s forced leave, continued blasting the majority of the council Tuesday.

“I believe we have the finest Police Department in the county, if not the state,” said resident Larry Powers. “I believe most of this is due to the leadership of John Robertson.” Powers joined a number of other speakers in calling for Rudat to remove himself from the decision.

“If the person sitting on Robertson’s shoulders has a documented conflict of interest, that person should be removed,” Powers said.

De Berry said Robertson would be entitled to a post-disciplinary hearing.