A committee initially formed to help the Hercules City Council select a new city attorney and later to address ethics issues was allowed to lapse at the end of last month amid rancor, recriminations and finger-pointing.
In the weeks before the Hercules Citizens Legal Ad Hoc Committee was allowed to sunset, four residents — Anton Jungherr, Lori Chinn, Giorgio Cosentino and Chris Tallerico — questioned its compliance with state open meeting rules popularly known as the Brown Act.

Their criticisms included that minutes were not posted, were incomplete and sometimes not available, and that meeting agendas did not provide for a public comment period.

Ad hoc committee member Phil Simmons dismissed the critics as proxies and accused Mayor Dan Romero of orchestrating the complaints to discredit the committee and its members, at least one of whom, Simmons himself, has said he will run in November for one of three council seats currently occupied by Romero, Gerard Boulanger and William Wilkins.

Simmons also blamed city administrative officials for any procedural shortcomings of the committee.
The critics said they acted as concerned citizens and bristled at the notion that they did so as anyone's proxies. Tallerico said he spoke up in reaction to public statements by Councilwoman Myrna de Vera that the committee should be extended beyond its latest sunset, June 30; if that were to happen, Tallerico said, the committee should act in accordance with the Brown Act and other state laws.

De Vera and Councilman John Delgado served as council liaison to the committee.

Simmons also contended that the committee was not subject to the Brown Act because it was an ad hoc committee, a view that clashed with the opinion of the committee's counsel, City Attorney Patrick Tang. Critics countered that the committee was ad hoc in name only, after more than a year in existence and a growing menu of responsibilities that most recently included drafting rules related to conflict of interest, nepotism and cronyism, and ethics, for eventual submission to the City Council.

Jungherr's objections led Tang to recommend canceling a June 27 committee meeting after an agenda had been published without specific reference to a public comment period.

At a contentious special meeting the following day, the committee voted 2-1, with Simmons abstaining and Toni Leance voting no, to accept Tang's “cure” — which included the rescheduling of the meeting, with a revised agenda, and ratification of past committee actions. Susan Keefe and Chairwoman Jennifer Ways voted yes. Eric Williams was absent.

The committee's report on ethics and related issues is supposed to be compiled, post-sunset, by Ways, with independent addenda from Simmons and Leance, and submitted to the council, probably in August.
Simmons and others said that until recently, no questions had been raised regarding possible Brown Act violations on the part of the committee, and that if there were any, they were technical and minor.

The Citizens Legal Ad Hoc Committee was formed in spring 2011 by an earlier city council consisting of de Vera, Delgado and Ed Balico, Joanne Ward and Donald Kuehne to help select a new city attorney and “provide recommendations on other issues.”

Boulanger and Wilkins were elected to the council in a special June 2011 election to replace Kuehne and Ward, who were recalled, and Romero was elected at the same time to replace Balico, who had resigned in January 2011.

The current council extended the committee in November 2011 and again in April 2012 to work on conflict of interest issues, nepotism and cronyism, and ethics.

Contact Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760