Last night’s Common Council session had a large agenda, including toward the end consideration of whether to appoint outside counsel for a possible complaint against a Police and Fire Commissioner.
After a closed session of about seventy minutes, Council returned to open session and unanimously voted to authorize outside counsel to be hired for a claimant, at a maximum hourly rate, with authorization of related costs, and with an outline of the procedure to be followed. (If both claimnant and accused have representation, some of the procedures will likely be established between the two sides’ attorneys.)
In the end, every situation like this involves a possible claimant and someone accused, and the procedures and expenditures and costs matter in relation to the complaint lodged. Procedural fairness matters, but it matters because specific people and specific situations warrant fair treatment.
Without knowing the nature of the complaint, the particular allegations against someone, there’s not much more to say, about procedures or costs or other matters. (It’s also possible that there will be no dismissal hearing, the matter being settled without need for one.)
Whitewater, as would many other places in similar circumstances, will probably slip into a parlor game about all this, but the more serious the matter, the less worthy that game will be. If all this should be serious enough for a hearing, then it’s already too serious for speculation and guessing.
We’ve had controversies before, and we’ll have them again, but each and every one of them has involved people aggrieved or accused, and there’s no general view of things that trumps a particular person’s right to be heard, as complainant or accused.