City Attorney Says He Can’t Release Independent Investigation Into ‘Wagner Affidavit’ That Malibu Taxpayers Paid For
Written by 991KBU on November 9, 2021
The Malibu City Council has been given the independent investigative report on the Wagner Affidavit … and it may or may not release it. The council will discuss the possible embarrassment to some city council members … on November 22nd.
The Wagner Affidavit is a series of allegations made by Jefferson Wagner … as he was leaving office two years ago. The allegations were made against political enemies at city hall … allegations that the city attorney and city manager at the time had covered up city hall bribery … and other supposed malfeasance.
City council member Bruce Silverstein helped Wagner produce the Affidavit … which sounds like a fancy legal document … but is in reality just one person making testimony and swearing it was true.
Reva Feldman was fired as city manager. Christi Hogin retired … as she had already planned … as city attorney.
But the allegations seemed … to many … lacking on specifics. The city council hired two lawyers … at an estimated cost of around a hundred thousand dollars … to investigate the Wagner Affidavit.
KBUU News learned last week that the investigation was finished … and the Wagner Affidavit was sitting in the hands of Malibu city council members. Under the state Public Documents laws … KBUU News asked for a copy. That was seven days ago.
The city has a 10 day clock under state law to hand them over …. and last night …. acting city attorney John Cotti said no … to KBUU in an email.
And shortly after that … Cotti made this announcement at the city council meeting.
NEWSCART 73879 COTTI PRIV
“We believe that it is protected by the attorney-client privilege …. but the council may wish to waive that privilege. Only the council acting as a body can waive that privilege so I am asking the council if it would like to schedule a meeting either on the 22nd … at your next scheduled meeting … or at some point of time … at a a special meeting to discuss whether the council would like to waive the privilege relative to that report.”
Under the Constitution of the Stater of California … and under a law enacted to enforce the constitution … documents held by government belong to the public.
Not the politicians.
A very narrow set of exemptions allows a city to hold back documents … under narrowly defined circumstances. Cotti says these documents … as the work product of an attorney … and thus are secret.
KBUU contends that the investigative report … on an affidavit that was made public … is not part of any active criminal investigation or lawsuit. And thus. … there can be no valid legal reason to withhold it. Of course … the city council has to make that decision.
But state courts have held that just because a document comes from a city lawyer … that does not mean it can automatically be declared secret.
And what if the city council decides to withhold any of the report …. maybe because the city offered confidentiality to people it interviewed??
It was a case that the City of Malibu lost in 2006 that went up to the state Court of Appeal … which ruled that the City of Malibu could not make a deal to preserve a contract in an executive session.
Last night … council members Bruce Silverstein and Mikke Pierson said they want the investigative report discussed … discussed … but they did not say released.
The way local government always operates …. they take every opportunity to discuss things behind a cloak of secrecy. Which gets us back to the Constitution of the State of California… and the state law that enforces its terms.
Documents belong to the people .. not the city council. And Malibu taxpayers paid about 100 thousand dollars for a report into allegations of cronyism and corruption at City Hall.
It’s a public document … under terms of the state constitution and state law. Will the city council release the Independent Report into the Wagner Affidavit??? All of it??? Stay tuned.
