These days, the RPA-controlled City Council is not focused on things people care about like crime, homelessness, dumping, potholes, pollution, weeds and city services. They are obsessed and laser focused on spending City money trying to punish me for telling the public how the City Council and City staff are routinely breaking the law.

Take a look at the Agenda for November 7, 2021. Item J-20, an amendment to an agreement with Meyers Nave for $75,000 to sue me for allegedly disclosing confidential information!

To ensure the City has appropriate legal representation related to general municipal law advice and litigation, the City Attorney requests approval of a first amendment in the amount of $75,000 to a legal services agreement with Meyers Nave, LLP. In addition, the City Attorney requests a $75,000 additional appropriation from the general fund to pay for the first contract amendment. This amendment relates to recently authorized litigation against Mayor Butt and so requires Mayor Butt’s recusal on the matter.

The J-20 Agenda Report addresses a $75,000 amendment, but attached are actually two agreements, one for $10,000 dated November 19, 2021, already signed by Laura Snideman, and another for $75,000, not yet signed, the total being $85,000, not $75,000.  It looks like the contract dated November 19, 2021, for $10,000 has already been signed by Laura Snideman before it has been approved by the City Council, which may be a Charter violation unless the City Council did not approve the contract, and it was executed solely on the city manager’s $10,000 authority. he Charter states:

(f) Administrative Responsibility. The Mayor shall sign all contracts on behalf of the City which are acted upon and approved by the City Council unless otherwise delegated by the City Council to a City official or employee, and shall exercise such other powers and duties as provided in this charter and ordinances and resolutions of the City

The City will now have to retain another attorney to defend me.

The other item I should bring to your attention is item J-17, amendment to the agreement with Burke Williams & Sorensen. The City Council is being asked to approve a $40,000 amendment to an agreement with Burke Williams $ Sorensen, LLP, to fight a lawsuit brought by neighbors against the City of Richmond for giving away 1,580 square feet and 77% of the right of way of Western Drive for a private parking space. I initially brought this egregious action by the city attorney and city manager to the public’s attention in the E-FORUM How to "Homestead" Land in Richmond, September 11, 2021. Instead of walking it back, the city manager and city attorney doubled down on their mistake. Eventually, the neighbors hired a lawyer, who happened to be my adult son, to file a lawsuit seeking to cancel the encroachment agreement. The petition summarizes the request as follows:

1. The protection and conservation of public resources, and in particular of public rights-of-way are one of the most important duties owed by a municipal government to its constituents. In recognizing this sacred duty, Richmond’s Municipal Code has the following preface to its ordinance for allowing utility encroachments: “The public rights-of-way are unique public resources held in trust for the benefit of the public. These physically limited resources require proper management to maximize their efficiency and minimize the costs to taxpayers, to protect against foreclosure of future economic expansion because of premature exhaustion of the public rights-of-way, and to minimize the inconvenience to and negative effects on the public from use of the public rights-of-way by video service providers, utilities and special districts.” (RMC 12.30.010).

2. Richmond has no administrative process for allowing permanent encroachments other than for utilities or temporary encroachments incident to and necessitated by construction permits — in which the public need for utilities and development is carefully weighed against the fundamental mandate to preserve public resources for public use. In those cases, public notice must be provided, and specific findings must be made before issuing an encroachment permit. All other encroachments, no matter how minor, are expressly forbidden by Code, unless approved by a majority vote of the City Council.

3. In spite of the clear and explicit requirements in Richmond’s City Charter and Municipal Code, Richmond Cir Manager executed a notarized, recorded agreement that grants exclusive possession of a substantial portion of a vital public right-of-way to a private homeowner, without any public process, in contravention of the City Charter and Municipal Code, and with the intent of increasing the sale value of the benefited private property.

4. When neighbors began complaining about an illegally built stockade fence enclosing over 1,500 square feet of a major public right-of-way, across from a busy and popular beach park, and which created a significant safety hazard to the public, the appropriate action by the City would have been to issue a citation, demand the fence be removed from public property and educate the owners on the appropriate process. That is at least, what neighbors expected of the City — that the City would follow the law.

5. Imagine the publics’ surprise, when instead of protecting the public trust as required by law, city staff undertook an elaborate conspiracy and surreptitious scheme to keep both the public and elected officials in the dark, and “legalize” the illegal encroachment by executing a notarized, recorded “Encroachment Agreement” that grants exclusive possession of the area of the illegal encroachment to the encroachers. All the while, city staff intentionally withheld this conspiracy from both the public and their elected representatives. It was not until a month after the illegal agreement had been recorded, and the benefited property sold at substantial profit, that the public became aware of what staff had done, at which time they were told it was too late: the gift of public and had been accomplished.

6. The purpose of this action is to unwind that conspiracy and order the City of Richmond to follow the procedures mandated by law and intended to protect “unique public resources held in trust for the benefit of the public” from being gifted away to increase private profit to the detriment of the public.

7. Petitioners/Plaintiffs seek a writ directing Respondent to void the illegal agreement and follow the procedures mandared by law. Further, Petitioners seek a judicial declaration declaring that the policies and practices of the City Manager to execute agreements which

Although they did not spend any public money doing it, the City Council has already:

• Adopted a resolution in open session on November 9 2021, condemning me for remarks I made regarding Laura Snideman in three E-FORUMS (City Attorney Goes Off the Rails, November 8, 2021 and Shakeup and Insanity at City Hall, November 10, 2021.. Then they fired Snideman, and I was the only one voting against it.
• Adopted a resolution on November 23, 2021, censuring me for allegedly releasing confidential information.
• To make it a perfect trifecta, there is a resolution on the December 7, 2021, Consent Calendar (J-18) authored by Martinez, Jimenez and Willis, commending City Attorney Teresa Stricker for her “service and professionalism and condemning statements about the city attorney made by Mayor Tom Butt.” This is after the city attorney resigned because the City Council was continually asking her to do things that were illegal and unethical.

This, folks, is what you get from the RPA City Council members with your tax money!