Long-simmering political tensions boiled over at Menlo Park’s City Council meeting Aug. 25, sparked by a San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report on rising public employee costs.
In a prickly meeting, the council voted 4-1 to approve the city’s response to the report, “Reversing the Upward Trend of Employee Costs in the Cities of San Mateo County.” Councilman John Boyle dissented, calling the city’s response defensive. He acknowledged weaknesses in the report, but argued that the city was missing an opportunity to take a leading position in reining in unsustainable costs.
The debate quickly swung to a discussion of politics, with Councilwoman Kelly Fergusson alleging that the report was driven by a thinly concealed ideological agenda.
“I have to say, this grand jury failed miserably,” she said. “There is just a shocking level of factual errors, and misstatements of facts.”
Ms. Fergusson went on to rip former councilwoman Lee Duboc for sending “hysterical” e-mails to her supporters about city issues. Ms. Duboc writes often on her blog, “Menlo Future” (menlofuture.weebly.com), about the cost to the city of employee salaries and benefits.
“The willful misrepresentation shown in this report is very much why Lee Duboc and Mickie Winkler got voted out of office,” Ms. Fergusson said, calling Ms. Duboc’s behavior shameful and selfish. Ms. Winkler, who along with Ms. Duboc failed to win re-election in 2006, is one of 19 members of the grand jury.
Mayor Heyward Robinson also expressed weariness over Ms. Duboc’s e-mails, arguing that she manipulates the truth to inflame her supporters. It costs the city time and money to respond to e-mails prompted by Ms. Duboc, Mr. Robinson said.
“We get a lot of comments from everybody, and it’s everybody’s right to respond and send us messages,” Mr. Boyle said, adding that employee costs is “clearly a big issue for a lot of people.”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Robinson said, before alleging that Ms. Duboc was abusing her position as a former council member. During Ms. Fergusson’s comments, Mr. Robinson declined Mr. Boyle’s request that he “control where this is going.”
Mr. Boyle asked that the council table the discussion to allow for more input from the community, repeating a previous call for more citizen involvement in drafting employee contracts.
City Manager Glen Rojas said it was unfair for Mr. Boyle to imply that the city responded defensively. “We’re going in the right direction to address long-term costs,” he said.
Ms. Fergusson said she thinks the council needs to take the “higher road,” instead of being drawn into a divisive, politically motivated debate by Ms. Duboc and Ms. Winkler.
In another e-mail she sent two days after the council meeting, Ms. Duboc said she was disappointed with the city’s written response to the report, but didn’t respond to Ms. Fergusson’s comments. She signed off with a quote by Portugese writer Jose Saramago: “As citizens we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved — it’s the citizen who changes things.”
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