ELECTION 2013 - It is September, 2006. CBS-Clear Channel has just negotiated a settlement agreement to pending litigation and the City Council is being asked to ratify that agreement. The terms of the ‘settlement’ give CBS-Clear Channel positioned CBS-Clear Channel to be able to modernize their billboards without City interference, going forward. This ‘public’ settlement agreement was discussed behind closed doors by the City Council, but little real discussion took place in public.
The Settlement with CBS-Clear Channel amounted to a blatant and absolute give-away of the City‘s police power over these billboards. . . the ‘classic’ insider deal reflective of the ‘cronyism’ which permeates City Hall and which the City Attorney can stop with the exercise of openness and transparency. Where the public interest conflicts with the political interests of the Councilmembers, their friends, or contributors, the City Attorney needs to see to it that the broader public interest ‘wins’ every time.
At its core, the ‘giveaway’ (disguised as a settlement of pending litigation over the legal efficacy of the City’s earlier billboard regulation scheme), gave CBS-Clear Channel the right to ‘modernize’ its billboards (converting them to digital) without any future City oversight whatsoever. This special privilege was part of the usual ‘head-fake’ (‘bait and switch’) that regularly permeates City Council proceedings.
While everyone was looking one way (the case was supposed to be about the legal efficacy of the City’s current billboard regulation regime), the City gave CBS-Clear Channel a blanket exemption from any change in future zoning laws. . a legalized ‘monopoly’ (in the sense their digitals were conferred ‘special status’, unique to all other billboards in the City. This meant major dollars for CBS and major campaign contributions for the politicians from those dollars. . .) The public trust was violated; as was a core social principle that all are to be treated equally. In short, the wrong result, for the wrong reason, in the wrong way.
Thereafter, as CBS converted its billboards to digital, people started asking questions and complaining. Instead of being honest with the people and telling them they had given away the City’s police powers (including the obligation to give notice to the public), the politicians (including the current crop Mayoral candidates) were silent. They failed to inform the public that the reason this was happening was because the City had given away its rights to police these billboards to a well-connected special interest.
Mr. Delgaillo, the City Attorney at the time facilitated the lack of transparency by also remaining mute. To Mr. Trutanich’s credit, he fought hard early in his term to effectuate a change; and his efforts were successful when the Court of Appeal, in December, 2012, ruled that the City Council acted outside its powers (the legal term is ‘ultra vires’) and abused its powers when it gave these special privileges to CBS-Clear Channel. The case is Summit Media, Inc. vs. City of Los Angeles –Case No. B220198).
Going forward, how can the City Attorney provide a ‘check and balance’ on this kind of ‘excess’ by the City Council and Mayor?
As City Attorney I would implement the following four reform measures:
1. The City Attorney’s office would be run more like a private law firm in that all attorneys would have to keep track of their hours as do lawyers in private practice;
2. These ‘billing records’ (each Department, including the City Council, would be ‘billed’ for the time spent by attorneys on their matters. These billing records (duly redacted to account for matters relating to attorney-client privilege) will be released to the public within 45 days so the people know who is meeting with whom. A collateral benefit is that the people can begin to see and appreciate how hard the diligent are the Deputy City Attorneys who serve them;
3. Every draft settlement agreement will be posted on the City Attorney’s web-site so the public knows and understands what is happening, when, and why. Call it ‘open source’ negotiations; but it will be good for the public to know how and why these settlements occur. This is something I did on the Lincoln Place settlement back in 2010. After the City Attorney refused to make the Settlement Agreement public (it was the subject of City Council discussion in open session), I persuaded the City Council to order it be made public.
This will be my policy going forward. . . Insist on full openness and transparency of all Settlement Agreements in every case. If the City Council wishes to keep the agreement secret, it will have to vote in open session to do so. No more will the City Council or the Mayor be able to hide behind phony claims of attorney-client privilege. This will help end crony-politics and insider dealings which favor the political interests of the Council member, at the expense of the broader public interest;
4. Finally, I would institute a policy where one year after a settlement, all notes and minutes of closed-session deliberations would be automatically released to the public unless the City Council passes a motion, debated in open session, directing that the minutes and the conversations be kept confidential.
If the City Council members knew they would have to be responsive to the public’s evaluation of their actions, then they would be sure to exercise the highest level of care and consideration when making these decisions. The goal is for the ‘games’ to cease, and to create and preserve a system less riddled with corruption and more reflective of our core social values.
(Noel Weiss – Candidate for City Attorney. www.PowerOverPoliticians.com)
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 8
Pub: Jan 23, 2013