City Attorney Marc Hynes, who has faced heavy criticism by several council members for withholding access to an investigator’s report into allegations of misdeeds by Atherton Building Department employees, is facing scrutiny over his job performance at an impromptu review this week.
The Atherton City Council, which traditionally doesn’t meet in August, has called a special closed session on Thursday, August 3, to evaluate the performance of Mr. Hynes, said Mayor Charles Marsala.
According to Mr. Hynes, attorney Lance Bayer’s investigation turned up no criminal misconduct, but disciplinary action may be taken against some building department employees.
Councilwoman Kathy McKeithen, who went so far as to file a public records request for the report, has dismissed Mr. Hynes’ arguments for keeping the report away from the council. Mr. Hynes cited attorney-client privilege and employee privacy in denying her request, she said.
The City Council, she said, is the ultimately the client, since the investigator was hired by the town. As a council member, she said she pledged to bring transparency and accountability to town government, and that she has a fiduciary duty to know what is going on in the building department.
Jim Ewert, an authority on public records law who serves as the legal counsel to the California Newspaper Publishers Association, told the Almanac he’d never seen a city attorney “stiff-arm a council” in such a fashion, and called it “career suicide.”
