Last week, I criticized a policy of confidentiality in municipal litigation. I offered seven reasons that a city should not seek or receive confidentiality as a condition of settlement. Confidentiality in municipal litigation is a bad idea, principally, because it deprives citizens of information about the conduct of public officials, on the public payroll, in the conduct of their public duties.
In this matter, the City of Whitewater, federal civil defendant Larry Meyer, and any number of leaders in Whitewater and Elkhorn would likely wish that expert witness reports, depositions, settlement details, and the suit itself be concealed from public view. I oppose that approach.
I also see the self-serving contradiction of city officials in an agreement that imposes confidentiality in municipal litigation. I am an advocate of free speech, and of assembly. I favor it generally, not merely when it suits me. The same is not true of so many officials in this town and their friends in Elkhorn.
The same men who loudly boast of every accomplishment when it serves them want to hide this matter now.
Our police department will tout any self-serving statement it wishes, no matter how small or trivial. Chief Coan will tell anyone who’ll listen how his officers are the finest, noblest, best-trained men and women on earth. He just doesn’t want anyone else to be able to tell you anything to the contrary.
The City of Whitewater website is littered with any number of laughable documents dedicated to Coan’s self-promotion.
Newsletters. Coan’s department produces a quarterly newsletter singing the praises of, well, Coan’s department. It’s a seasonal exercise in smug, self-satisfaction. Recent editions are available on the city website, and each is a like tiny romance novel from Chief Coan to Chief Coan.
Travelogues. Coan offers readers a four-page account of his ride along with the New Orleans police department after Hurricane Katrina. That community suffered greatly from the storm, and Coan’s humanitarian instincts led him to there as a passenger in a local police vehicle. It’s not Travels with Charley, but it is revealing reading. Coan’s account acknowledges that policing in New Orleans has limited resemblance to policing Whitewater. One might have guessed as much, but still Coan made the trip. The New Orleans account is part 4 (yes, part 4) in Coan’s Parallels in Policing series. He’s also been to New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Perhaps one might also remind Coan that in Euclidean geometry, parallel lines do not intersect, and the cities he’s chosen are about as far removed from ours as one could expect in America.
If Coan likes traveling in a car so much, perhaps he would like a bus even better. Greyhound offers reasonably priced, one-way tickets to Arizona, and it’s beautiful there this time of year. Why wait?
A mature man or woman would be embarrassed by these narcissistic reports and newsletters. Coan must be proud of them, or he wouldn’t write and post them.
Our city manager’s weekly report offers quotations from figures great and small, sometimes interesting, but otherwise inapt and puzzling. I would be more inclined to these small nuggets of purported wisdom if they came from an administration that advocated openness more comprehensively. Confucius, whatever his value, is of slight use in a city that would audaciously favor a confidentiality agreement in a federal lawsuit against its employees in their public actions. Instead of printing t-shirts for city workers sporting a quotation from deceased hamburger magnate Ray Kroc, perhaps something more apt: “We Have Nothing to Hide. Really.”
The promotional videos that the city places on its website would be more credible if they came from a town that did not rush to shove legitimate public information from the public view.
Our city finance director gave an interview at which he declared a settlement that may amount to tens of thousands will cost the city nothing. He justified his statement by telling a local paper that our city is insured, and that the policy has a zero deductible. I will, for the moment, accept that statement at face value. (Even though I know that there cannot be a resolution to the case without cost to the city, as Larry Meyer has cost us too much already.) Let’s assume that Saubert’s right that the carrier will cover the cost, and future premiums will be unaffected.
Yet it’s clear that Saubert admits in that same interview that he was not familiar with the terms of the settlement. Saubert’s statement about zero-cost served to lessen the disgrace that Larry Meyer’s caused this town. Not long after, Jim Coan turned the budget on which Saubert worked upside down in two weeks’ time. Saubert’s comments in the interview served Coan’s interest, by minimizing the impact of the lawsuit against Coan’s investigator, but Coan didn’t return the favor.
Our neighbors, beyond our city in Elkhorn, have their interests in this, too. I am sure that an affidavit from a former member of the prosecutor’s office pointing out the ways Larry Meyer disregarded prosecutorial direction must be embarrassing. Embarrassing, twice over: (1) it bolsters the contention that Meyer acted contrary to direction, and (2) it raises questions about the circumstances under which the affidavit’s author – then an assistant district attorney, now with the Wisconsin attorney general’s office – left his position in Elkhorn.
These different people are not the only ones who have, or who should have, the right to discuss. They want to talk when it favors them, but they want to silence others when the discussion turns to subjects they find unfavorable.