HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Council 0627940
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CITY OF PALM BEACH GARDENS
MEETING OF CITY COUNCIL
Monday, June 27, 1994
City Hall
10500 North Military Trail
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
5:20 p.m. - 6:40 p.m.
ATTENDEES:
DAVID CLARK, Mayor
BOBBIE HERAKOVICH, City Manager
LINDA MONROE, Vice Mayor
LAUREN FURTADO, Council member
JOSEPH RUSSO, Council member
ERIC JABLIN, Council member
THOMAS J. BAIRD, City Attorney
ROBERT MOSES, Special Counsel
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P R O C E E D I N G S
MR. BAIRD: Let's go on the record, then.
We have convened with the City Council
here. Bob Moses, our special litigation cc
is present, every member of the City Counci
except for Mayor Clark is present -- he she
be joining us shortly -- Bobbie Herakovich,
manager, and myself.
I want to run through briefly kind of a
history of how we got to this point with you on
the Wiley class action and recap some things
from Wells, and then turn it over to Bob Moses,
who has been, obviously, defending the city in
the various cases for more time than Bob wants
to remember, I think.
The Wells case has been settled, and it
was settled post- verdict, meaning we had a
verdict from the jury but we did not have that
verdict reduced to a final judgment.
And consequently we wanted to settle that
before we had a final judgment, so that that
final judgment could not be entered into the
record in the Wiley case, because it would have
been evidence or could have been used as
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evidence of discriminatory practices had it been
available to be entered into the Wiley class
action.
The settlement essentially paid the
approximately $257,000 in damages that the jury
awarded to Mr. Wells and allocated approximately
$300,000 in attorney's fees to the plaintiff's
lawyers.
We have a primary insurance coverage
policy that provides for a million dollars.
That approximate $557,000 in the Wells comes out
of that a million dollars from the policy,
leaving us a balance of approximately $443,000.
That $443,000 is available towards any
claims in the Wiley class action. And in fact,
the carrier has for all intents and purposes
tendered the balance of that to be paid in the
Wiley class action, if a settlement can be
reached.
The Wiley settlement -- first of all,
there are approximately 48 members in the class,
and Bob --
MS. MONROE: 48?
MR. BAIRD: 48.
Bob will a little bit later explain to you
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how that's being litigated by the plaintiffs in
terms of what we have been referring to as a
statistical case, as opposed to in the Wells
case where we had an individual and we could
measure that individual versus discriminatory
practices and other standards.
The initial demand by the lawyers with the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who are representing
with Rick Ford the Wiley class, was for ten
million dollars.
They based their ten million dollar
settlement figure on a formula that they used
and that they claimed to use in cases throughout
the nation that they have litigated. They
believe that that ten million dollar figure is a
fair figure and an accurate figure and a
reasonable figure.
Nevertheless, we spent approximately 8
hours several weeks ago in informal mediation
with the lawyers for the Legal Defense Fund and
the class, and when we left that session there
was a demand for settling the case for four
million dollars.
You'll recall at the council meeting I
advised council members that I would speak to
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you, I would like to speak with you on Friday or
over the weekend regarding that.
And essentially what happened was that the
four million dollar figure was not acceptable to
a majority of the City Council and, therefore,
that figure was rejected by myself to the
plaintiff's lawyers.
They were quite upset that that figure had
been rejected and felt that it was a very fair
figure.
Nevertheless, we had formal mediation with
a mediator assigned by the United States
District Court last Monday. That mediation
lasted approximately 12 hours, where we hammered
out the present proposal, and the present
proposal essentially calls for a settlement of
$2.2 million, assuming the city can obtain one
million dollars in excess coverage, which is
available through a second insurance carrier.
Our -- excuse me -- my preliminary
assessment of that coverage policy is that the
excess coverage should kick in and we should
have that money made available.
One of the other things I asked you all
the last time I spoke to you individually was
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whether I could obtain an opinion from an
attorney specializing in such coverages, such
that we could be sure whether or not my
assessment of the coverage was accurate;
although we might not be sure, at least we would
have a greater level of confidence in it.
MR. RUSSO: Excuse me, Tom.
You asked us in a meeting, not
individually. I think you asked us in a meeting
a couple weeks ago.
MR. BAIRD: Okay. Both.
I know I talked to some people
individually.
At any rate, we have retained Mike Easley
of Easley & Willits, who is evaluating that
coverage. There are a number of policies to go
through.
We need an answer from General Accident,
the carrier, before we settle the case as to
whether or not they are going to cover us. If
they say they are going to cover us, then there
may be an issue of how much they'll tender in
that coverage. And given the demand made, it
seems that they should tender the full amount of
the policy, but one can never be sure what a
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carrier might do.
If that money is not available, if that
coverage is not available, then the plaintiffs'
class has agreed to accept a settlement of $1.7
million, which will increase obviously the
amount of out -of- pocket money coming from the
city.
Were the coverage to be available, the
city would pay approximately $151,000 over five
years after the initial lump sum payment from
the carrier to the city is made.
If the excess coverage is not available,
the city would be in a position of having to pay
over five years $220,000 a year.
Now, all that does is settle the Wiley
class action. That does not include the Justice
Department's case against the city, which is not
just a race discrimination case; it's a race
discrimination and gender -based case and alleges
that the city discriminated against blacks and
females.
The claim from the, the compensation pool,
the Justice Department requests in their
proposed consent decree is $875,000.
Their position is that approximately six
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hundred thousand of that figure is for females,
the balance for blacks.
However, my negotiations -- to the extent
one can negotiate with the Justice Department --
late last week have been fruitful to the extent
they reduced their demand to settle the case for
$270,000. So that $270,000 would come in
addition to either the 1.7 million or 2.2
million figure in the Riley case.
It's likely that the $270,000 figure would
have to be paid in lump sum by establishing a
fund that members of the gender class could
receive back pay awards from.
It is unlikely, given my latest
conversation with the Justice Department today,
that that $270,000 could be paid over five years
or a time period, as we are being permitted to
do in the Wiley case.
The last thing that I want to summarize
for you before Bob addresses the Wiley
settlement is that the Justice Department will
not settle only the claim for blacks and let the
gender -based claim go on for a subsequent
settlement. We have to settle both claims in
the Justice Department case at the same time or
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not settle either of those claims.
So, for example, were you to decide that
the Wiley case should be settled but that we
don't have the $270,000 or can't get to that
figure in order to settle the U.S.A. case, we
will still be faced with that $850,000 claim and
trying to settle that at some point or letting
that case go to trial.
There is no coverage for the Justice
Department case, to the extent that they are
asking only for back pay. They are not asking
for compensatory damages.
However, there were some back pay amounts
awarded by the jury in Wells that were paid by
the carrier in the Wells case. So we might make
a demand on the carrier, and both carriers in
the United States case.
Whether or not we could prevail there or
even get a decision from the carrier prior to
the July 5th deadline that's been imposed upon
us by the judge of settling this case remains to
be seen.
The last thing, I suppose, to add to all
of this is that the judge at the end, even after
the case is settled between the parties, there
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is what is called a fairness hearing for class
actions. The judge has the final say as to
whether or not he thinks the settlement is fair.
So there is the possibility that we could
agree with the plaintiffs' lawyers that a
settlement of 2.2 million adequately covers the
class and settles the case, and yet the judge
could reject that settlement and ask for
additional compensation, or a member of the
class could challenge the settlement as being
unfair.
And in fact that has occurred in the City
of Miami Beach's case not too long ago.
So if we agree to settle the case, then we
have to sell that settlement essentially to the
judge, both the plaintiffs' lawyers and the
defense lawyers.
It puts us in a unique position of having
to join together to present in essence our case
that the settlement is fair.
I think at this point perhaps Bob could go
through why he believes, as do I, that the 2.2
or 1.7 settlement is a good settlement for the
city because of the potential liability if we
don't settle that case.
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MR. MOSES: Let me explain my role, first
of all:.
I am hired by Scottsdale Insurance Company
and am representing you. You are my client in
the Wiley case, as is, in their official
capacity, the chief and the city manager.
I am here strictly as trial counsel. I
cannot by my mandate get involved in any
insurance coverage questions, either with
Scottsdale or General Accident.
Tom is taking care of that as your special
coverage attorney.
The Wells case and the Wiley case have
remarkable similarities, but also are remarkably
different. And it's real important that you all
understand both the similarities and the
differences.
The similarities are this:
The facts on the issue of liability are
going to be essentially the same. You have read
and are aware of most of that testimony. We
spent some two and a half weeks in trial trying
to rebut it.
In a small nut shell, it was a very
difficult case to defend. Employees, for the
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most part employees, existing employees from the
City of Palm Beach Gardens uniformly testified
about an awful lot of language from the chief.
There was testimony concerning practices where
the sergeants were instructed to discard
applications for black applicants. There was a
lot of discussion concerning racial jokes.
Essentially the only people that backed up
the chief and the city manager were people who
were no longer employed by the City of Palm
Beach Gardens and were coincidentally involved
with some litigation with you, and you all know
who I am talking about.
It was a difficult case to defend on the
issue of liability, but it did have a very
strong point in our favor, and that was Reno
Wells. We attacked Reno Wells from the start of
the trial to the conclusion of the trial, and we
stressed those points very strongly.
And, frankly, the award from the jury in
my opinion was very reasonable. We were not
dissatisfied with the award in that case.
I say that there are a lot of
similarities. Those, the facts concerning the
alleged discriminatory practices are the
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similarities.
One of the major dissimilarities and one
of the major problems that I will have in the
Wiley case is that they have taken Reno Wells
away from me. I do not have someone that I can
attack. I don't have someone that I can hold up
to the jury and say, "This was not a good police
officer and the city properly terminated him
before he completed his probation."
I don't have that luxury in this case.
And that's a big big minus that I have.
Structurally, the Wells case is very
different from the Wiley case. Wells was an
individual plaintiff bringing an individual
claim.
The Wiley case is a class action, and
although we have identified 50, 48 to 50
potential class members, it's not 50 or 48
individual plaintiffs versus the city; it's a
class. And, therefore, the merit of any one or
all of those class members is really not
something that is considered in the initial
phase of the class action.
It is a statistical class action, as Tom
mentioned. And essentially what the discovery
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on the liability case has revealed is what we
knew in Wells. It's going to be a fairly easy
case for the plaintiffs to prevail on the issue
of liability.
It's the same testimony we heard before.
We will hear it again if I force that issue.
The difference between Wells and Wiley,
the class versus the individual, is this: It's
statistical. The plaintiffs have taken the
position that based upon their review and their
economists --
(Thereupon, Mayor Clark entered the room.)
MR. CLARK: Sorry, I am late.
MR. MOSES: Just getting to the meat of it
now.
The plaintiffs have taken the position
that from 1987, which is when the class
commenced, till the present time the City of
Palm Beach Gardens should have hired 17.5
percent blacks in their community of law
enforcement and dispatchers. That's what we are
being sued on, for discrimination in law
enforcement officers and dispatchers.
They are saying that we should have had
17.5 percent.
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Our statistical analysis -- and I will
tell you that the statistical analysis has been
very difficult, because back in 1987 the records
just were not very good.
The very, in my opinion, the very very
best, the very very best that we will be able to
get is 11.5 percent, and that's saying
something, because the manner in which we
conducted the statistics may be counting the
City of Palm Beach Gardens twice. But let's
just use those figures as the best and the worst
case scenario.
We know that in the year 1987 there were
no blacks employed in the police department.
We have calculated as best we could that
there were approximately fifty police officers
and dispatchers employed by the city in 1987.
Between the two of them, they would have earned
an average of about $15,700 for that year.
So simple mathematics shows that we should
have hired nine black people for the law
enforcement, if you take the 17.5 and you
multiply that out, means that we should have
paid black employees for the police department
$137,000.
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If you take our figure of 11.5, that means
we should have hired six employees, and that
would have come to $92,000 that we should have
paid black employees during that year.
We pulled it out for each succeeding year:
For 1988, if you take their numbers, we should
have paid black employees a hundred and ninety
thousand. If you take our figure, we should
have paid them a hundred and fourteen.
It goes on and on and on.
The year 1991, for example, we should have
hired 13 black, there should have been 13 black
people employed in our law enforcement
department, and we should have paid them almost
$300,000.
By my figures it would have still been
nine people, paying them two hundred seven.
The city hired their first black law
enforcement officer or dispatcher on December 2,
1992. I factored that in. We would have paid
them roughly $26,000.
In the year 1993/94, we should have hired
thirteen people. We have hired seven people.
So we factored that figure in there.
The long and the short of it, if you take
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those and you simply add them all together, for
the 17.5 figure, which is what the plaintiff
takes, that comes to a million six.
By our figures it comes to about $900,000,
a little over $900.000. That's only back pay.
Now, the lawsuit in this case is: Back
pay plus interest; front pay, which means the
amount of money that they would have earned in
the future; and also compensatory damages, what
each of these class members have suffered in the
past and in the future.
In the Wells case, the jury came in with a
compensatory number of $60,000, which in my
opinion is a good sound figure. It is a figure
we were pleased with and it is a reflection of
Reno Wells as a police officer.
But let's just say for the sake of arguing
that this jury decides that the fifty class
members each should get $20,000 -- that's a
third of what they gave Reno Wells -- that comes
out to $1.5 million.
We add that to those numbers of 1.6, we
are at three million bucks. That doesn't
include front pay. That doesn't include
interest.
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And another thing that the plaintiffs are
entitled to in this case is attorneys' fees. We
paid $300,000 in Wells in the face of a claim of
over $750,000 in attorneys' fees.
I can tell you that that number will be
at least matched in the Wiley case.
So I guess what I am telling you is that
in my opinion this is a good and workable
settlement. It is a settlement that is going to
be costly, but it is a settlement which is far
lower than what a jury potentially under either
scenario, either mine or the plaintiffs', can
give in this case.
The figure will be substantially higher.
And the reason that we were able to negotiate
these figures is because of the available
insurance coverage.
Tom's last point is a very important
point. In a class action the judge serves as
the final word on whether to approve or not
approve a settlement.
Judge Graham in my opinion in the Wells
case was not happy with the verdict. He thought
it was way too low. That's my humble opinion.
We are concerned that if we do not give a
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settlement in this case which is at least
respectable, that Judge Graham is simply going
to reject it out of hand.
And we don't want that to happen. We have
worked together -- believe it or not, if we can
settle this case, we are going to work in
cooperation with the Legal Defense Fund and the
plaintiffs in order to try to push this
settlement through.
They want it to be done, we want it to be
done. It is a deal that I think that should be
done.
As far as the Justice Department, I am
personally not involved in that case. And Tom
has far more information than I do, but you
should know that it involves, as Tom has
indicated, gender, not only race.
And the figures that I have given you are
strictly related to, strictly related to race.
It does not consider the issue of gender. So
that number is going to be higher.
I don't pretend to understand all of the
intricacies of the council, and that's not my
role here. My role to you is to tell you that
if we litigate this case it could take two to
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three weeks. I know that the press will be
there for two or three weeks.
I can tell you that in my opinion the
verdict will be higher than the settlement that
is on the table now. And I would encourage you
to strongly consider these figures.
MR. RUSSO: Is that it? Can we --
MR. BAIRD: If anybody has any questions,
we can address those.
And I don't know, Bobbie, if you want to
address how we might be paying a settlement of
this nature.
MR. CLARK: What a good idea.
MS. HERAKOV'ICH: Well, I might also let
you know that the Justice Department consent
decree also requires some reporting and some
advertising, which you will see in this next
proposed budget.
So an increased advertising budget for
recruitment and a person that will be doing
quarterly reports and recruiting and
advertising, and basically a compliance person,
you will be seeing that in the proposed budget.
As far as how do we come up with this kind
of money: There is three or four different ways
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of looking at it.
The worst case scenario would be cut -backs
on staff. If you figured $220,000 a year at
about $22,000 an annual salary, that's ten
people. Cut -backs in supplies, we just put off
some projects that we were planning on.
In between that scenario and the best
scenario would be the possibility of looking at
some kind of new funding arrangement that the
council has not addressed, which is essentially
a tax increase, whether that be on assessed
value or by implementing something like the
utility tax that the city currently doesn't
assess.
The best case scenario would be to dip
into our fund balance. The city currently
budgets some funds each year. And that would be
the least painful as far as keeping a current
level of service in our current operations.
We have discussed: Can you put -- add it
to a bond issue or can you possibly increase
your police impact fees?
Yes, we could do an increase in police
impact fees. They are awfully low. But not
enough to cover the total costs.
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MR. RUSSO: Excuse me.
Couldn't raise police impact fees for
anything like this. That's got nothing to do
with it. Police impact fees would be strictly
for equipment and so forth.
MS. HERAKOVICH: Right. It would be a way
of supplementing costs on the other end, if we
reduce costs within the operating budget.
MR. RUSSO: How we pay for it in my own
personal opinion really don't matter, because we
have got to pay for it no matter what way we go,
it seems.
So as far as I am concerned, that's -- how
we pay for it is another discussion, another
day.
I think what we need to decide here today
is whether we think this is a fair settlement.
I think we all feel that this is an
embarrassment for the city, number one. And I
think the quicker that we could settle this and
move forward, the better off we will be.
I guess the part I feel the worst about is
this affects many residents of our city that
really didn't do anything, yet have to pay for
this.
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And I guess that's the bigger concern I
have and what upsets me the most about much of
this settlement, is that I think we have
demonstrated over the past, I guess 18 months or
so, that we have the city in a different
direction and we are hiring minorities and we
are hiring genders, women and so forth, and I
think we have shown that this is a different
city and we are going to do things differently.
And to have our residents, many of them
that can't afford to pay the taxes they have to
pay today, to ask them to pay more because of
basically, I guess, this problem, that's where I
have the problem.
I think, though, you have negotiated it
down to whereby the slap on the wrist kind of
money is probably very minimal compared to --
you know, I think most of this money is going to
the people, I guess, that were discriminated
against as opposed to some funds that are just
there, and I guess that makes me feel a lot
better.
The one question I have on your
statistical arrangement is: In 1993 I know we
made a tremendous effort to hire as many blacks
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and minorities as we could, and we still didn't
meet the numbers of where we need to be.
MR. MOSES: That is correct.
MR. RUSSO: I guess my concern is, if we
made such a tremendous effort then, are the
statistical numbers correct?
Because we did everything that we could
possibly do last year to add blacks to the
police department.
MS. FURTADO: And females.
MR. J'ABLIN: That's my question: Are we
perpetuating the same situation into the future?
MR. RUSSO: Could we get sued again?
MR. CLARK: No. The question is not the
actual numbers you hire, but really the manner
in which you go about the hiring.
If you institute the procedure so it's
race blind and sex gender blind, then you don't
have that exposure. If you then just happen to
hire fewer blacks than the numbers might
dictate, or more blacks, it's not really
relevant.
MS. FURTADO: If people aren't qualified
they can't fill a position.
MR. RUSSO: See, I think we can
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demonstrate in 1993 that we did all that, and
maybe you could pull 193 out of there
completely, but it still is not going to make
much of a difference to everything else.
So my own feeling is that we have expert
counsel telling us that this is a fair
settlement for the city. So my own opinion is I
think we should take it and move forward.
MS. FURTADO: Just for the record, I agree
with Joe.
MR. BAIRD: You can get a copy of the
transcript, Joe.
MR. MOSES: Just that one sentence.
MS. FURTADO: I feel badly that people are
being penalized that had nothing to do with the
whole situation, but we have no control over
that. We have to deal with it now.
MR. CLARK: Speaking of people being
penalized: All this money is coming out of our
pocket. The one thing I don't see is any money
coming out of Orr's or Frazier's (phonetic)
pocket.
MS. FURTADO: Exactly. I'm glad you
brought it up, because I didn't know if I could
bring it up. But obviously it's okay.
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MR. BAIRD: Their position communicated
through their attorney has been that they will
not contribute to the settlement.
MR. MOSES: More than that, their position
is that they cannot and they do not have the
funds to contribute to the settlement.
MR. JABLIN: Do we have any action against
them?
MR. RUSSO: Not against Mr. Orr. I
believe in his termination agreement it was that
we would not --
MS. FURTADO: Unless it was criminal.
MR. RUSSO: Right, unless it was criminal.
MR. CLARK: But in terms of the settlement
negotiations, I think that it may be something
that might be worth pursuing, because we have
this two hundred seventy thousand Department of
Justice claim that's not included in this that's
hanging out there.
We are going to have to figure out a way
of dealing with that. And I think if we are
going to approve the settlement, and I think we
should approve this settlement, I think we have
to find a way of coming to terms with that other
issue.
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MR. RUSSO: You know, I just want to back
up a step.
I think you have to take Mr. Orr's
agreement out, because I know that in the
agreement we agreed to defend him. I don't know
if we agreed to not take any actions if he did
anything that was wrong.
So I think that's again another
discussion, another day, to see whether there is
anything that -- you know, whether there is
anything that we should be able to take any
action against.
MR. BAIRD: Let me -- I think you need to,
in terms of Mr. Orr, probably the direction, at
least that I hear, is take a look at what
actions, if any, we have.
I can't sit here and say that the one -page
resignation letter that he executed, which is
somewhat self- serving, absolves him of any
liability, any and all liability. I don't
believe that's the case.
But obviously we would have to consider
what kinds of causes of action, if any, the city
might have for indemnification for his actions.
But what you do need to decide, I think,
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is: One, the Wiley class action, if you would
like to instruct myself and Mr. Moses to go
forward to settle that case along the parameters
that have been identified by the plaintiffs'
counsel;
And, secondly, whether you believe that we
should attempt to at the same time settle the
Justice Department case.
Which from my perspective, I can't see
having that case continuing to hang over you,
having gone through the litigation you had to
with these other two cases.
MR. CLARK: I don't think you want to lose
the momentum now.
MR. RUSSO: Settle them all now.
MR. CLARK: Otherwise they could grind on
forever.
MS. MONROE: I agree that we have hired
you folks to advise us, and I would hate to take
any action that you are not advising. And it
sounds appropriate.
MR. RUSSO: Right.
MR. CLARK: In terms of settling the
Department of Justice claim, what kind of
charter could you look for from us that will
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help you in that?
Obviously we're trying to settle that for
as low an amount as we possibly can. I don't
care for the proposal. I think that paying out
the amount we are already paying -- tentatively
agreed to pay out on these other complaints
ought to really put the matter to rest.
We have implemented new procedures in the
city. We have done everything the Department of
Justice would tell us to do, and I think it's
pretty egregious of them to sit there and say,
"And in addition to that, you pay us two hundred
and seventy thousand bucks."
If there is a slap in the face, that's a
slap.
MS. FURTADO: That one has to do with
minorities.
MR. BAIRD: They originally wanted more.
But their position is that their claim,
their $875,000 claim, is for a class of blacks
who were discriminated against and a class of
women who were discriminated against.
MR. JABLIN: Are these nameless and
faceless?
MR. BAIRD: Some of them.
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MR. MOSES: It would be another
statistical action.
MS. FURTADO: Where does this money go?
MR. JABLIN: Where does the money go?
MR. BAIRD: I am getting to that.
The way the Justice Department breaks down
the $875,000 is: Roughly six hundred thousand
for the women, and $275,000 thousand for blacks.
So the $270,000 settlement presumably is
for women applicants who were discriminated
against by the city.
In my -- two other things to relay to you
about the Justice Department's case:
In my conversation with their lawyer, one
of their lawyers today, he said we may have the
same problem that you could have with Wiley in
terms of a fairness hearing presenting that
$270,000 figure to the judge.
The good news is that we have Judge
Hurley, who has just been elevated from Palm
Beach County Circuit Court, not elevated but...
MR. CLARK: Sounds like he's been made a
demigod.
MR. BAIRD: Judge Hurley, in addition to
being familiar with the city and the city's
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efforts to cure past bad practices, is regarded
throughout this county and elsewhere as one of
the fairest jurists that is around.
I feel that he would do whatever he can to
make sure that that settlement is fair, and I
don't have any reservations about presenting
that figure to him.
Secondly, along the lines of Council
Member Russo's remarks regarding we have done
everything, we have made great strides:
That's been a theme that I have stressed
over and over again with the Justice Department,
with the Legal Defense Fund and with Mr. wells.
The Justice Department has -- is fully
aware of that. They of course do press releases
when they settle cases, and they have indicated
a willingness within their own bounds to credit
the existing administration and City Council for
the changes that have been implemented and are
continuing to he implemented in an effort to put
as good a light on things as they can within
the, their position.
Which of course, you know the Justice
Department has some constraints on how they want
to be involved in cases.
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I think from my conversations with
plaintiffs' counsel that it's also likely that
we can put the settlement in the best light
possible in terms of the city's efforts to
correct past mistakes.
But, as is always the case, what
ultimately winds up in print or on the air is
not a decision made by plaintiff's lawyers and
defendant's lawyers; it's made by editors in
newsrooms.
So we will -- we are conscious of that.
We are going to be making that effort. And
hopefully one or more of you will be available
when it's time to present things publicly, so
that together we can present that perspective as
it's transmitted throughout the various
publications that it will be transmitted in.
Because a figure like 2.2 million will
attract a lot of attention.
MR. MOSES: You should know that the Legal
Defense Fund, or the people that we are dealing
with now are very much impressed with the
progress that has been made, and have spoken to
me and told me about it repeatedly.
And some of the concession that's we were
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able to get in this case was --
MR. JABLIN: Which group is that?
MR. MOSES: The plaintiffs in the lawsuit
that I am involved in, the civil action, the
class action, they have expressed that on many
occasions to me, that they have been very
impressed with the efforts that have been made,
and that is one of the reasons for whatever
concessions they are throwing in for us, so to
speak.
MR. RUSSO: We might be looking at ten
million dollars if we haven't done what we --
MR. JABLIN: You still didn't answer the
question about: Is this a fine? Where does
that money go, just out of curiosity?
MR. BAIRD: The money goes to applicants
who were denied employment.
MS. MONROE: In this case, in this city?
MR. JABLIN: I am talking about the
Justice Department settlement.
MR. BAIRD: It goes to -- the $270,000 is
a pool of money established and persons, in this
case women, who believe they were denied
employment by the city.
MR. JABLIN: Can come and claim --
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MR. BAIRD: Can claim a portion of that.
MR. MOSES: In the class action it's a
similar situation, that they would -- there
would be a pool of money and then they would
have to prove to the court that they were
entitled to a certain percentage of that money.
And those are all legal proceedings.
MR. JABLIN: If no one came to claim it,
what happens to it?
MR. MOSES: Well, actually it would be
split up among those who did make the claim.
And I can promise you there is at least one out
there who is more than eager to do that.
MS. HERAKOVICH: You need to understand
there could be some publicity by the Legal
Defense Fund, as well, suggesting that each
applicant gets -- is going to receive two or ten
thousand, or whatever that amount of dollars
each has, as a result of that.
MR. JABLIN: It will get split up.
MR. CLARK: Somehow.
MR. RUSSO: Are we done?
MR. BAIRD: Yes.
MS. MONROE: So you've got a consensus, is
that all you need?
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MR. MOSES: Do you have what you need?
MR. BAIRD: Yes.
If I could just -- my understanding of the
council's position is to authorize Mr. Moses and
I to execute the appropriate settlement
documents, and to the extent any of those
documents would require the mayor's signature,
to make those arrangements.
MR. JABLIN: Do you need a motion for
that?
MR. BAIRD: Why don't we go ahead and do
that by motion?
MS. MONROE: Motion.
MS. FURTADO: Motion.
MS. MONROE: Second.
MR. CLARK: We need to adjourn this
meeting and go back to the other...
(Thereupon, at 6:40 o'clock p.m., the
meeting was adjourned.)
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C E R T I F I C A T E
THE STATE OF FLORIDA,)
COUNTY OF PALM BEACH.)
I, Jane Pastore, Registered Professional
Reporter, do hereby certify that I was authorized to
and did report the above meeting at the time and place
herein stated, and that it is a true and correct
transcription of my stenotype notes taken during said
meeting.
Dated this 14th day of July, 1994.
i
JANE PASTORE
THE STATE OF FLORIDA
COUNTY OF PALM BEACH
The foregoing certificate was acknowledged before
me this 14th day of July, 1994, by Jane Pastore, who
is personally known to me.
Name:
Notary Public - State of Florida
My Commission No.
Expires:
CYNTHIA n KL ESDA r
MY C�MMISS10td # C'154097
g EXPIRES, March 3, t9°6
Bondad Thru Notary PUVZ L'nde;vmters
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CITY OF PALM BEACH GARDENS
Inter - office Memorandum
TO: Linda Kosier, City Clerk
FROM: Thomas J. Baird, City Attorney
DATE: August 1, 1994
RE: Attorney /Client Meeting
Attached is an original and one certified copy of the
attorney /client session between the City Council and myself and
Robert Moses, Esquire. Pursuant to Florida law, the transcript is
to be filed with the City Clerk; however, it is not a public record
subject to disclosure until all litigation which has been discussed
is finally resolved. This session was held to discuss matters
related to the cases of (1) Wells v. City of Palm Beach Gardens;
(2) Wyly v. City of Palm Beach Gardens; and 3) Uni ed States of
America v. City of Palm Beach Gardens. Thus, since t e Wells case
as been reso ve , you snouid consider these transcripts sealed and
may not permit anyone, except myself or Mr. Moses, including the
City Manager and Council to review it.
Any and all requests to read, copy or review this transcript
should be referred to me at once. Should you have any questions,
please contact me.
tjb \ss \319000 \memo \kosier