City Council - Special Meeting

Welcome to the Tuesday, August 4th City Council Special Meeting. Roll call, please.

Mayor Gilman. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Meng. Here. Council Member Rule. Here. Council Member Lange. Here. Council Member Whitman.

Here. Would you lead us in the pledge, please? Of course. Thank you.

Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Any changes to our one agenda item? Okay, and then we have one public comment.

The responsibility of council is to make the community a little more just, a little more decent, a little more hopeful. That responsibility belongs to you tonight. This case has gone on for three and a half years. During that time, it's consumed extraordinary public resources. The record shows 13 sessions devoted to this matter. The city's paid over $250,000 to outside counsel. When attorney time, staff resources, and countless hours of work are included, the total cost approaches $1 million and it's not over. Without a settlement, the city faces hundreds of thousands of dollars more in legal fees before considering liability that might be awarded. Every dollar spent on this is a dollar not spent on our parks, our streets, public safety, or the needs of our residents. But even more than that, we have to consider the effect of this case on the public's willingness to serve in the seats that you sit in right now. We have an election coming up, but we don't have many disputed elections. Mr. Whitman has no challenger yet. Mayor Gilman does not. Rachel Lang does have one, but he's not a Democrat. Leslie Ruhle has the same situation. She has one challenger who's not a Democrat. And Kim Meng was elected before without a challenger. What does this say about our city? I think it says that people don't want to devote their time to run, to be a city council member, to have the possibility that they're sued for an official act for which they should be indemnified, but instead are not indemnified. They don't want to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and the risks that come along with it. Instead they sit at home and they don't participate. There's a reason that we indemnify council members. It's so that you can all do your best for your constituents without fear that your official acts will incur personal liability for you. But for some reason, we're denying that benefit to council member rule. I used to live in Councilmember Rule's district. I now live in Councilmember Mang's. And when I did, I would point out that it denied me the representation of my councilmember in front of this body. That's not true for me anymore, because I have Councilmember Mang representing me, but it is true for all of my neighbors who live in the first district. I think the prudent thing, that's it, thank you.

Okay, we got it. Anybody online?

No attendees on Zoom, Mayor.

Okay, thank you. We will adjourn to the closed session.

Thank you, Starchild.

We return from closed session. We will go to the city attorney for a report.

There is no reportable action out of tonight's closed session. And that's it.

Thank you. And meeting's adjourned.