Sanity restored?
For those of you following the foolishness that is La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid and his threatened lawsuit against a critical constituent, it appears that at least one city councilmember has his head on straight. Councilman Barry Jantz submitted the following letter in the comments to last weekend's initial post on the subject.
Feb. 21, 2006
Mr. Chris Tanner
(Address Left Blank)
La Mesa, CA 91941Dear Mr. Tanner:
This letter is to provide you my individual, retrospective input and opinion regarding recent events. This opinion may not be that of the La Mesa City Council as a majority or as a public body.
I believe the City’s January 31, 2006, letter to you was inappropriate and should not have been sent, for reasons I will outline herein. First, let me make it clear that I in no way blame City Attorney Glenn Sabine, as I am sure he was responding to what he believed to be the sentiment of the City Council. I must, however, as an elected councilmember in the City of La Mesa, take responsibility for the letter being sent, especially without demanding that a thorough discussion of the ramifications first take place.
I believe the letter sent to you was inappropriate for the following reasons. First, the letter had negative repercussions and a chilling impact on the perception of freedom of expression in the City of La Mesa. This by far negatively outweighs any intended message to you about your comments during the January 24 City Council meeting.
Additionally, in retrospect, removing myself from the heat of that moment, I believe that if any individual council member(s) thought they were wronged by you as the result of your comments, a decision to pursue some course of action in that regard would be a personal one, not a City of La Mesa one. I have no intention of pursuing any such course of action.However, this does not lessen my hope that your statements during the meeting could have been at the very least clarified to indicate that you in no way were implying or suggesting that the City Council was colluding with a developer in a conspiracy to lessen safety involving blasting regulations. I still have that hope.
I can and will admit mistakes, but let me tell you where I will not admit one. I have spent over 15 years as a public servant ensuring that I am above reproach, doing everything possible to make certain I am involved in absolutely nothing unethical, illegal or underhanded, either by reality or appearance. Such is the case in my consideration of changes to blasting regulations in the City of La Mesa.
I hope no one forgets what we are discussing is the use of explosives in areas adjacent to residential areas, where we had some dangerous fly-rock incidents. In fact, just such an incident was the very reason that you spoke at the meeting, because the City Council had chosen to place on the agenda the issue and to demand that our blasting regulations be strengthened to ensure no such accident ever again takes place.
Within that context, I hope anyone would understand why - personally - I still believe that I am justifiably disturbed by any possible implications to the contrary, even if free speech.
My personal apologies to you for the letter sent, as well as for the resulting implication that La Mesa, the City Council or I are out to stifle anyone’s fundamental right to address their elected representatives. I paraphrase what someone very succinctly said to me: “La Mesa lost a terrific opportunity to be statesmen-like, even in the face of what you considered unwarranted attack.â€I would be more than pleased to discuss any of this with you personally. You may reach me at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Barry Jantz
La Mesa CouncilmemberCc: Mayor and City Council
City Manager
City Attorney
Councliman Jantz's letter is a welcome sign that the holier than thou hostility toward free speech doesn't hold complete sway over the council. Hopefully Jantz will be able to convice at least two of his colleagues to avoid the egregious waste of taxpayers dollars that a lawsuit would bring. If you're interested in in contacting other councilmembers, you can find them here.
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Thanks for this fantastic website. Hey, what is being left out, in your coverage, and some of the pieces/articles we've "googled," is the shady, sleazy role played by Glenn Sabine, City Attorney for La Mesa, and several cities in SD County, including our city, Encinitas.
Glenn Sabine through his terrible lawfirm of Sabine & Morrison consistently gives unfair, untrustworthy, and conflicted advice. Sabine & Morrison have a propensity for picking on the little guy, such as us, to file frivolous, ridiculous and unfair lawsuits. This would be funny (black comedy) if we were not in the Court of Appeals right now, over a non-violation, on our property, regarding a small studio/workshop attached to our garage, which building was permitted in 1953. We are a very rare breed: low income homeowners. Sabine and Morrison, suing in the name of the people have repeatedly violated our California Constitutional rights of privacy, our 4th Amendment Rights and our 1st Amendment rights.
It is common knowledge that individuals should have the right to object, to make public comments, which they believe are true, about public officials, and also, to petition the government for redress of grievances. Try doing it here and you are likely to get slapped with a vindictive "civil" lawsuit, with deep pocket attorneys suing you in the name of the State of California ex rel. Glenn Sabine, Encinitas City Attorney.
Sabine acts like a private attorney for council and staff. He has a direct conflict of interest with us citizens. He is completely inaccessible to us, and will not return phone calls, or sit down to work on a settlement. The more he litigates, the more he makes. He and his partner, Randal R. Morrison got two substantial raises in 2005. These raises are typically just put on the Consent Calendar, with no discussion, without Council being aware of the details, or if they are aware, they were worked out, secretly, in closed sessions.
We object. We honestly believe, and know from personal experience that Glenn Sabine and his lawfirm have misrepresented the truth, and lost or destroyed important evidence, in our case. Encinitas has far too many closed sessions. The Brown Act is being misused and misapplied for its litigation loopholes, rather than for its intent, open government.
By the way, Glenn Sabine wrote the 1/31/06 letter to Chris Tanner, threatening a lawsuit against him for defamation of character, unless he publicly apologized, and retracted his statement. Sabine could have simply advised Mayor Art Madrid, no way, Jose!
Hey, this is it for now, but here's the letter we just sent to Councilman Jantz:
Dear Mr. Jantz,
You should hold Glenn Sabine partially responsible. It is his duty and his job to give you credible, legal advice, not to inflame public sentiment against La Mesa City Council, and to force taxpayers to pay the fee he charged to write this bogus letter. What ever Mayor Madrid may have told Glenn Sabine, he should have advised him that the Constitution is quite clear on the privileges of free speech in a public forum guaranteed to every individual.
Below is a copy of our input into this, published on Hoystory, where I got your e-mail address. Unfortunately Glenn Sabine is our city attorney too, not elected, or appointed, but contracted with through our City Council. Mr. Sabine’s primary interests, to us, seem to be political cronyism and billable hours. It is noble of you to take the blame, the responsibility. But those of us who have had the misfortune to have to deal with Sabine & Morrison know that they give poor advice, and do not work to reconcile problems in the best interests of the citizens. We cannot speculate whether or not they get kickbacks from developers, but Mr. Sabine certainly profits from his $150.00 billable hour rate, plus expenses, with a minimum of 50 hours per month here, in Encinitas. How many hours does he bill, minimally for La Mesa? And how much did you have to pay for a letter that should never have been written. Mr. Sabine could have been honest and forthright with Mayor Madrid. He was not.