The citizen group Building a Better Redondo has filed another lawsuit against the City of Redondo Beach seeking more legal documents and fuller disclosure of the city’s litigation costs in its ongoing legal battle with BBR.
BBR Chair Jim Light said that the lawsuit, filed March 28, was made necessary by the city’s lack of forthrightness. He said BBR is attempting to defend itself from accusations of “legalized rape” made previously by Councilman Steve Aspel and a suggestion by Councilman Steve Diels that the group and its attorney, Frank Angel, are motivated by “unethical greed.”
“Diels and Aspel made nasty accusations towards myself and Frank Angel,” Light said. “Diels even implied that [Councilman] Bill Brand is trying to line his pockets with money from the lawsuit. So we put in a public records request to show our costs are in line with what the city is spending, and they are not providing all the data we have asked for.”
A Superior Court judge last fall awarded BBR $335,000 in legal costs after the group successfully sued the city and forced an election on harbor zoning. In November, BBR lost at the ballot box as Measure G, which imposed development restrictions but also increased allowable commercial zoning by as much as 400,000 sq. ft., was overwhelmingly supported by voters. The city subsequently appealed the legal fees; the case is still in appeals court.
Diels said that BBR’s lawsuit is vindictive and counterproductive.
“It’s not unexpected – they continue to harass the city,” Diels said. “BBR seems to have moved from its roots and has now got some other mission which I can’t exactly identify. I still say follow the money. What appalls me now is they are running up the bill, because this lawsuit is linked to the other. They tried to extract $335,000 from the city…and now Frank Angel’s $550 per hour fee will be used to extract more money from the city.”
“This is a greedy bunch,” Diels added. “There is nothing in this that appears to be for the public good. And frankly, it sounds vindictive…these guys are so stunned by their electoral loss they will do anything.”
Light said that Diels’ accusations are demonstrably untrue.
“He’s there swinging accusations at BBR and we want to use the city’s own data to refute that,” Light said. “He’s stated I could personally benefit from this thing in my bank account…He’s either casting aspersions and making libelous contentions he knows are outright false, or he is ignorant of the facts and he is going to attack and denigrate people who oppose his agenda in the city.”
Assistant City Attorney Cheryl Park said that the city had fully complied with two “voluminous” public records requests made by BBR. She said certain documents were exempt from the request under legal exemptions covering attorney-client privilege, attorney work product, and existing litigation.
“On those three basis,’ we have responded to them and informed them that certain documents they are seeking are not being disclosed at this time,” she said.
City Attorney Mike Webb said that his office has gone to great lengths to be fully transparent and in this instance spent considerable time compiling 321 pages of documents to comply with BBR’s request. But he said parts of the request sought documents that would reveal legal strategies pertinent to the ongoing litigation.
“We pride ourselves on our transparency,” Webb said. “We have given great emphasis to responding to public records requests by the press and by the public – we turn them over quicker than the state does. In this case, it’s very clear these are not requests asked on behalf of the public. These are requests asked on behalf of someone suing the city. You have to balance out the obligations to defend the city in a proper manner with obligations to turn over records that are public. We have done that.”
Webb said that the many of the records requests also involve legal costs not pertinent to the BBR lawsuit but rather costs associated with preparing the ballot measure and even reaching back a few years to 2008’ss Measure DD. He said that the cost of the city’s outside legal firms hover around $225 per hour, as opposed to Angel’s combined $550 (which includes another attorney and a paralegal). He argued that BBR was trying to justify its legal costs by including costs that are not comparative.
“Because they know the hourly rate is so much higher on what they spend on litigating, they are trying to lump stuff in that has nothing to do with litigation but has to do with our obligation to make sure we follow the City Charter,” Webb said. “They don’t want an apples-to-apples comparison.”
The city’s costs in the BBR lawsuit through last November were roughly $127,000, according to Webb, who said that a somewhat higher total inclusive of subsequent bills is included in the documents obtained by BBR.
“They know down to the penny, they know down to the hours,” Webb said. “But I don’t think the public wants documents specifically showing our legal strategy to be turned over to people suing the city.”
Light said BBR’s attorney simply deserves to be compensated for work he did that insured the public won its right to vote.
“We wouldn’t be here today if they had followed the City Charter, and now the city continues to ramp up the costs,” Light said. “They are the ones continuing to do damage to the taxpayers by ramping up costs on the city side….Frank Angel did this on a contingency fee, and he deserves to get his money back. So far, a judge has said the city was wrong and he deserves his fees.”
Angel did not return a call seeking comment. Diels said he hopes Angel never sees a dime of city funds.
“Here’s a guy who wants his three hundred thousand bucks, and he’s afraid he’s not going to get it, and I hope he doesn’t,” Diels said. “Paying Frank Angel is not a good use of public funds. The people spoke loud and clear – they don’t agree with Jim Light and Frank Angel.” ER
