This story originally appeared in Monday morning’s (May 22) edition of the Daily Post. If you want to get important local news stories first, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has voted to automatically publicize all settlements over $1 million, closing a loophole that allowed them to approve large payments without announcing them.
Supervisor Joe Simitian proposed the idea on Tuesday (May 16) in light of three multi-million dollar settlements with the families of inmates who were killed or seriously injured in jail.
Supervisors discussed their lawsuits with County Counsel James Williams in closed sessions, and they directed Williams to approve the settlements without taking a formal vote or announcement.
The Brown Act, which is the state law governing public meetings, only requires local governments to announce a settlement if it is signed at the same meeting. The documents are usually signed later, so the only way for the public to know about the settlements would be to track court records or make a request under the California Public Records Act.
This process lacks “true transparency,” Simitian said.
“We can’t expect things to change if the standard operating procedure is one in which there’s no awareness, let alone concern or outrage,” he said.
Williams will announce million-dollar settlements in writing and verbally every quarter now.
Simitian referenced the cases of Michael Tyree, Andrew Hogan and Juan Martin Nunez.
Tyree was beaten to death in a jail cell in August 2015, and the county settled with his family for $3.6 million.
Hogan was left alone in the back of a van after he smashed his head into a steel beam 50 times, resulting in permanent brain damage in August 2018. The county paid his family $10 million.
Nunez ran headfirst into the door of his cell in August 2019 and then was left on the floor for over 24 hours. He was paralyzed, and the county settled with him for $7 million.
“One man is dead, one man is brain-damaged for life and one man is paralyzed for life,” Simitian said.
In the Tyree case, the guards were arrested and charged with murder, while the Hogan and Nunez cases didn’t come to light until later on. A police auditor found wrongdoing in all three cases.
Supervisors Susan Ellenberg and Sylvia Arenas were on the fence about Simitian’s proposal but ultimately voted yes.
Disclosing large payments could make the county seem like an easy target, Ellenberg said.
The settlements can already be released at the board’s discretion and reporters usually pick up on these stories anyways, she said.
“I keep spinning out unintended consequences and feel this is an unnecessary step because we have the power to do this anytime we think it’s important,” she said.
County Counsel James Williams said he would report on million-dollar settlements every quarter. After two years, he said he would do a separate report on the impact of the change.
The county does a good job of avoiding large settlements, besides the three cases in the jail, Williams said.
In San Mateo County, residents were left in the dark about a pair of settlements that a sewer agency signed with its executive director and a worker who he sexually harassed.
Silicon Valley Clean Water paid $875,000 to Executive Director Dan Child and $1 million to his victim.
Child was fired in May 2018, but the two payouts weren’t made public until July 2019 when an anonymous copy of a portion of Child’s settlement agreement was sent to the Post.
In hopes of finding something that disclosed the board’s agreements with Jane Doe and Child, the Post reviewed the minutes for every SVCW board meeting between late 2017 and August 2019.
The only potential public acknowledgement appears to have occurred on May 20, 2019, when SVCW attorney Christine Fitzgerald announced that the board has “approved the final settlement agreement.” However, she didn’t identify the employee with whom the district settled or the amount of the payment.
The settlement agreement with the woman was signed on Sept. 3, 2018, and Child signed his on May 9, 2019.
The Post went to court to obtain the settlement agreements and related documents. After a legal battle that took more than two and a half years, the paper obtained the documents and received $25,000 from Child and SVCW to cover its legal fees.
Former San Carlos Mayor Mark Olbert, who was on the board at the time, said the loophole exists when government agencies make a proposal to another party that has filed a claim, and the other party accepts the offer.
“It is a degree of flexibility, which I believe agencies should utilize rarely, if ever,” he said in an op-ed.
As an alternative, San Carlos City Council votes on the expense itself in public, although some details may be kept confidential.
“If you don’t choose to keep the public aware of at least the broad outlines of public expenditures, but the public is entitled to the information upon request, you are always going to be subject to questions about why you chose to be less open on one item versus another,” he said. “Being more open consistently makes you less subject to charges of trying to mislead the public or to conceal potentially controversial government conduct.
Two of the inmates are getting paid for deliberately injuring themselves? Is this an effort to encourage self-destruction?
I don’t think Michael Tyree is able to spend any money where he is right now.
This is a welcome move. It’s our money after all. Government shouldn’t play ‘hide the ball’ when it comes to our tax dollars. Three cheers for Simitian.