A Municipal Election/Conflict Story for Election Week

Here's an election story with a conflict of interest angle. In Crescent City, California (pop. 7,500) on the beautiful California coast up near the Oregon border, the little city's former finance director is running for clerk.

According to articles in the Daily Triplicate, the finance director was fired a little more than a year ago, either (depending on whom you ask) because she had been arrested for domestic abuse against her husband and for not working well with the council, or because she had unearthed the council's apparently illegal health benefits and other financial shenanigans. She sued the city for a million dollars or so, for wrongful termination (even though she was apparently in her probationary period), a suit that is still pending.

According to the city attorney, the clerk candidate has a conflict of interest, because she is suing the city. But he makes a poor argument. Would it be inconsistent for a clerk to, say, bring a sex discrimination case against the city? Would she have to quit her job first?

The city attorney writes, "what would be her posture when her private attorney ... calls upon her for help and information?" In other words, would she favor this attorney over other attorneys or citizens seeking to look at city records? Favoring a lawyer or business associate has nothing to do with suing a city. This can be a problem with anyone. It is irrelevant to the city attorney's argument.

The city attorney writes, "What would be [her] posture were she to become city clerk when called upon to assist in the city's defense?" How could she be called on to assist the city, other than supplying records? A clerk has no policy-making role. Is he implying that she would be in a position to destroy, change, or withhold city records? This would be the best argument against the clerk's candidacy, if one didn't trust her, but it goes beyond conflict of interest. According to this scenario, she would be running for office to obtain the opportunity to commit a crime to benefit her suit against the city.

Also, the city attorney seems concerned that the clerk's lawyer is representing another client against the city. How could this be relevant? The attorney isn't running for office. Anyone he represents other than the clerk candidate has nothing to do with the candidate's possible conflicts of interest.

The city attorney's inability to make any serious argument concerning a conflict of interest implies that there isn't one. It also implies that his letter to the editor is itself ethical misconduct: misusing his position and authority to undermine a citizen's candidacy. The timing of his letter seems to point to this explanation. This seems to be just another partisan conflict putting on an ethical mask for Halloween.

But possible conflicts involving suits against a local government come up again and again, often with respect to attorneys. A serious problem arises when an attorney hired to sue a city is selected to be its city attorney. Is it enough to drop the suit (which might bring up legal ethics issues) when there is an appearance that the attorney is antagonistic to the city? The considerations are how many cases there are and how big they are. If it's just one minor zoning dispute, it's no big deal. But if it's a number of suits or one really big one that's in the public eye, even dropping the case might leave some doubt among city residents where the attorney's loyalties lie.

For more about the Crescent City situation, which has a lot of things going on that I didn't mention, check out articles here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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