Precisely a week after a City Council election in which four of the members were trying to keep their seats and a council pay raise measure also was on the ballot, the council approved legal settlements totalling $9.2 million — a ton of bad news for taxpayers, all on the same day.

To a number of readers, as well as newsroom observers paid to squint at City Hall, news of the simultaneous settlements was stunning. The three cases were unconnected — $8 million to a former transit operator in a case dating to 2006, a $250,000 payoff in a wrongful dismissal case involving former city employee Terri Velasquez and a $995,000 check for Memorial Hospital bondholders who sued because the city paid bonds off seven years early.

To some observers, it was like learning of an explosion at a North Korean missile installation, then hearing that the blast was attributed to an asteroid. No official has acknowledged the council intentionally delayed the settlements so there would not be a lot of bad news just before the election.

“Nothing would be further from the truth,” said Council President Scott Hente. “I never heard that one come up.”

Yet Bill Finger, the attorney who represented Velasquez, told The Gazette that she had signed off on the settlement in mid-March. Why did that settlement not become official until after the election?

“I don’t have an answer for that one,” Hente said.

Hente soon will leave the council. As the member with the longest tenure, he acknowledged he couldn’t remember three lawsuits being settled at once.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Hente said, “but it is a coincidence.”

Hente added that it was known by council members that a settlement in the Memorial bondholder case was imminent.

“To be perfectly honest, the one with the bondholders and Memorial, I thought that one had been settled already,” he said.

Asked about the timing of the settlements, Mayor Steve Bach said “I’m not going to comment on that. I don’t have any information.”

Councilman Tim Leigh, an incumbent who lost, said he missed executive sessions when the lawsuits were discussed because an ethics case involving him was discussed during the same sessions. But Leigh doubted the settlements were delayed intentionally.

“I don’t think anybody’s that smart,” Leigh said. “I wouldn’t give that group of people that much credit.”

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Got a question? Contact Barry Noreen at 636-0363 
or at barry.noreen@gazette.com.

Photo by

MARK REIS