Broken trust

After seeking from City Hall a breakdown of expenditures on lawsuits related to Chico Scrap Metal, I now know why the members of the City Council majority are appealing the ruling of a local superior court judge who sided with community group Move the Junkyard: They think they have nothing to lose.

That’s because, as I recently learned through requests for public records, Chico Scrap Metal is picking up the tab. You read that correctly. The Chico business that for more than a decade had been the subject of a city amortization order—that is, an order to eventually move because its operations were illegal under local land-use laws—is paying the municipality’s legal bills in the battle against the grassroots group that is trying to make sure the process is completed.

So far—as of Jan. 25, anyway—the price tag totals just shy of $74,000. That’s according to the City Clerk’s Office, which reported to me the costs associated with “Move the Junkyard et al vs. City of Chico et al” and “City of Chico et al vs. Move the Junkyard et al,” both of which you can read about in detail at the Butte County Superior Court’s website (buttecourt.ca.gov). Keep in mind that figure is for legal fees only. I’d also inquired about the cost of the time city staff has spent working on efforts related to the litigation—no final word on that yet.

So how is it, you might ask, that Chico Scrap Metal is on the hook for the city’s legal expenses? That was my first question, too. As it turns out, payment of such fees is required by an indemnification clause found in the development agreement signed by George Scott, the recycling center’s owner, and approved by the City Council on a 4-to-3 vote down party lines in October 2016.

I’m referring to the vote of Sean Morgan, Reanette Fillmer, Mark Sorensen and Andrew Coolidge, the conservative bloc that, during the first meeting in which they gained a council majority just over three years ago, voted to agendize discussion of the city’s long-planned effort to get the nonconforming business to vacate the property in light of the passage of the Chapman-Mulberry Neighborhood Plan many years earlier. They subsequently torched those plans.

A couple of things to chew on here:

First, why wasn’t the city more transparent about the fact that the recycler is paying the attorney’s fees? Neither Howard Hardee (the CN&R reporter who regularly covers the council) nor Ashiah Scharaga (the former Chico E-R city beat reporter who now works for this newspaper) was aware of this arrangement.

Second, doesn’t it seem strange that City Attorney Vince Ewing’s employer, the Southern California-based Alvarez-Glasman and Colvin Law Firm, is the one working on the cases? I mean, obviously the public doesn’t know how Ewing advises the council in closed session, the place such litigation is discussed and voted upon, but it seems like a conflict that his employer is benefiting financially from the council majority’s litigiousness.

And last, but not least by any means, since some outside entity is writing the check, there’s at least the appearance that the city is doing the bidding of a private business.

Which brings me back to the council majority’s belief they have nothing to lose.

Clearly, the public’s trust was never a consideration.