|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Editor’s note: The Woodside Town Council agreed to a settlement with Nancy Reyering, paying $35,000 to cover her legal fees, on Nov. 14, 2017.
The Woodside Town Council on Feb. 14 is set to address a matter in which the town engaged an Oakland-based attorney to investigate allegations by a former volunteer (former councilman Dave Burow) that another volunteer (Nancy Reyering of the Architectural and Site Review Board) violated the town’s ethics code. It was not the only such ethics complaint in the past year.
In March 2016, that same Oakland-based attorney — Thomas Brown of the firm Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP — was hired to conduct an investigation of a complaint by a Woodside volunteer who alleged that another Woodside volunteer violated the ethics code.
Woodside resident and Open Space Committee member Thomas Johnson, according to emails provided by the town, accused fellow committee member Sue Sweeney, who is Dave Burow’s wife, of violating a section of the ethics code that concerns abusive conduct, personal charges or verbal attacks on someone’s character, motives, ethics or morals.
The investigating attorney in this case reached a preliminary finding that “the conduct complained of did not constitute a violation.” And Town Attorney Jean Savaree said the matter would not go to the Town Council “because Mr. Johnson has withdrawn his complaint.”
Mr. Johnson withdrew his complaint “in the interests of restoring civility after a very divisive election,” he said in an email, referring to Open Space Committee member Nancy Reyering’s bid for a seat on the Town Council. “Unfortunately, this has not been the case.”
The town said it paid the outside attorney $15,441 to investigate the complaint by Mr. Johnson, and $27,465 to investigate the complaint by Mr. Burow.
Johnson complaint
In a Dec. 7, 2015, email to Councilman Peter Mason, Mr. Johnson takes issue with an October 2015 comment posted by Ms. Sweeney on the Almanac’s Town Square online forum.
In the posting, Ms. Sweeney described a process – which she said she could verify with a series of emails – that had not been followed by Nancy Reyering, another Open Space Committee member, in preparing a proposal for the Town Council on the topic of fences. Ms. Reyering’s “final proposal,” Ms. Sweeney said in her post, “was neither presented to nor reviewed by a quorum of the Open Space Committee.”
In his message to Councilman Mason, Mr. Johnson said that Ms. Sweeney “was unable to produce the emails.”
In an email to Ms. Sweeney, Mr. Johnson alleged that Ms. Sweeney said the Open Space Committee was “in full support of large basements,” adding that he did not recall voting on the matter. In her response, Ms. Sweeney recalls saying that the committee supports larger houses if the property is open for wildlife, and that basements are not a problem as long as they are within setbacks.
—
Wow. We don’t need lawyers for ethics investigations … We need babysitters.
wow. you think there might be a problem with these committees?