05/26/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Special Council Minutes of 5/26/2004 given to city officials. So, when initially named as a defendant, he made that inquiry of ;,,: the other side, and he found out that they named him because they thought that he was the records custodian of those particular records, which he is not. With that understanding, he was dismissed out and other city officials were joined as the appropriate records custodian. Those concerns that he had from the start were eliminated. Fresh concerns have arisen since in the months of April and May which have caused him to take this action. Mr. Dial said he would have to trust the judgments made in the executive session. Taking Mr. Dubelko's comments at face value, he has got to commend him on having the courage to stand up and take this stand. Councilman Limpert asked why this had to be done under suspension tonight. Law Director Dubelko explained he has a May 28 deadline to file an index with the court. The Law Dept. is in the process of covering that date, trying to put that together. But that follows thereafter another date, which is even more critical. They are in the middle of several court deadlines, end of IVtay/beginning of June. If there was nothing on the horizon, he would agree with Mr. Limpert. But there are several court deadlines on the horizon that make it imperative for the city to be defended that he withdraw and new counsel come on board. Mr. Limpert asked why can't we file for an extension if we needed more time? Mr. Dubelko said, first of all, there is no guarantee that the court is going to grant an extension of time. Secondly, his obligations under the code of professional responsibilities require him to withdrew when put in this situation. To continue to file motions or do the index, makes him feel very uncomfortable. Professionally speaking, he should be off the case as soon as possible. Mr. Limpert asked, if the briefs have basically been written and it's a matter of indexing, why do we need outside counsel to do the indexing when we have an Assistant Law Director and we have a Prosecutor, all of whom are attorneys under the city's employ? Law Director Dubelko explained that those people work for him. He appoints them. Certainly it's difficult when somebody is in a position of appointing an individual and that person has to take a stance against their boss. Any conflict he has is going to translate through the small Law Department and require outside counsel. Mr. Limpert then asked if there has been any attempt to just sit down with an arbitrator and with the Mayor's attorney and the Law Director to try to resolve this outside of the courts. Law Director Dubelko said he gave a legal opinion quite some time ago that would have allowed the Mayor to look at the records in his official capacity. That's one effort he made. Also, there was a meeting before the Court of Appeals conference attorney to look at the issue and attempting to find a resolution of this, and that failed. Councilman Gareau noted the irony of this was that the legislation, if passed by Council, is subject to a veto of the Mayor. Law Director Dubelko said the contract must also be signed. Councilman Gareau wondered what the cost of all this would be. The legislation calls for an appropriation of $15,000 that will potentially be spent to defend a lawsuit brought by the city's Mayor, brought against his Clerk of Council and our Police Chief. Law Director Dubelko commented that the indexing portion is not something that's just clerical that doesn't need legal guidance. The process requires that the city in the first instance provide an index of all the records in question. Then an opportunity is given to the other side to challenge that and question that. So questions may come up as to whether or not a particular record fits in the one category or another or whether or not all the records have been disclosed. In light of some of the events that he has discussed with Council in executive session, he shouldn't be involved in that process any more so than ~# 9 ,u ~ _.