A tense exchange in Carmel City Council over a mysterious agenda item, decoded.

Carmel’s politics these days are about as tangled as piles of washed-up kelp on the town’s white sand beach after high tide.

Examples of just how tangled are on full display at several Carmel City Council meetings this year, like a council majority announcing in March it would take no action after an investigation into a woman complaining about sexualized comments made to her by Mayor Steve Dallas.

There was the kerfuffle over a restaurant trash enclosure that played out in council over a few meetings and in Monterey County Superior Court.

In August controversy arose over the proposed five-year contract for City Attorney Glen Mozingo despite numerous residents urging the council to wait until after a judge’s decision in a lawsuit over public records. A defiant council majority voted to approve the contract 4-1, Councilmember Bobby Richards dissenting.

Add in the heat of an election year, Dallas is being challenged by two candidates, former Monterey County Supervisor Dave Potter and Eugene Hughes.

The political intrigue was ratcheted up a few notches higher last week in a surprising clash between Mozingo and Richards on the dais during a City Council meeting on Sept. 11.

The lead-up to the exchange started the afternoon of Sept. 7, when the agenda for both the Monday, Sept. 10 special City Council meeting and the Sept. 11 regular meeting were released. Listed under closed session on Monday was an item about potential litigation over “illegal conduct” by a “councilman.” Dallas told the Weekly, “This is not in reference to me.”

Process of elimination means it referred to Richards, the only other man on the council, who declined to comment.

That Monday, resident Georgina Armstrong approached the podium during the public comment period to ask a series of questions about the item. She also expressed her concern that Richards’ identity was made known, a point she believes violates the Brown Act, the state’s public meetings law, which allows for some items, including litigation, to be discussed in closed session. 

“As for the ethics of the matter, I would have expected the council to take all steps possible to protect a fellow council member from undue pain and discomfort,” Armstrong said. “Not only does this take on a feeling of gossip—and it has engendered that—but it also feels timed to the election.”

(Richards is not up for re-election, but he is supporting Potter, as well as candidate Jeff Baron, who is vying for a seat against incumbents Carolyn Hardy and Carrie Theis.)

Some of Armstrong’s questions included wanting to know why the agenda item was written the way it was who was involved in writing or signing off on it.

Armstrong stepped up to the podium again the next day at the regular council meeting with similar questions, adding that listing the agenda item felt “underhanded and deceptive, rather than open and transparent.

“And I asked you for this information 24 hours ago. I assume you have had enough time to contemplate and consider your response.” 

He was prepared to answer, Mozingo said from the dais, but that's where things start to turn weird. He  turned to Richards for an unusual exchange.

“In deference to Councilman Richards I would ask whether you would like me to discuss this with her privately or publicly?”

Richards was obviously surprised by the question, and got testy.

“I’m not sure, Mr. Mozingo, because you’re putting me on the spot,” he said.

“It’s in deference to you, you get to make the call,” Mozingo replied.

“I think I would need an attorney to advise me, otherwise I could have a real mess on my hands,” Richards replied, clearly becoming agitated. “I wish I would have known before the meeting that you were going to ask me this, because you had this information to you last night. If you had asked me last night I could have gotten counsel this morning, but now you’re putting me on the spot at 5:30 in the evening.”

Mozingo backed away, saying he would answer only one of Armstrong’s questions: whether there was a Brown Act violation when Dallas confirmed by default that the agenda item was about Richards.

“There’s no violation of the Brown Act in any of these actions you’ve identified,” Mozingo said.

(The Weekly reached out to attorney David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, who says it “probably is a Brown Act violation,” but that it could be disputed either way, depending on circumstances.)

In a phone interview a week later, Mozingo says the timing of Dallas answering the question about whether it referred to him was not a violation, and that nothing Armstrong was asking pertained to closed-session discussions, only procedures.

Asked why the agenda was written noting the conduct of a “councilman,” Mozingo replies: “It didn’t occur to me that we would cast any council person in the light of an accusation. I don’t think, frankly, I gave it a great deal of consideration. That was the language I chose.”

He contends there was no attempt to paint Richards in a negative light, and downplayed any connection to politics. The two men shook hands after Richards' "no" vote on Mozingo's contract, and the attorney says he doesn't take it personally.

As to why he asked Richards during the evening council meeting, instead of earlier, he offers that he didn’t know Armstrong was going to ask the questions a second time.

But the tensions continue. Richards believed Mozingo did know, based on an email he sent to the Weekly after the meeting last week. Titled, “Under the bus,” Richards laid out his frustration, starting with what he felt was a lack of common courtesy by not asking him ahead of time.

“I thought that was fairly common in most professional settings,” he writes, explaining that he always lets staff members know if he’s going to raise questions during meetings. “That’s why I was so surprised.”

His explanation for why he didn’t want Mozingo to answer Armstrong publicly was that he feared they would put the city in jeopardy without further legal advice.

(By phone on Sept. 18, Richards says he has consulted several attorneys since, but he’s still not going to comment. Voices of Monterey Bay reports that the “illegal conduct” stems from an allegation that Richards rented a room to a friend of Dallas’ over a year ago in violation of the city’s short-term rental ordinance.)

“Maybe I should at least start law school before I am asked to answer questions about possible city litigation,” Richards writes by email. “I was unaware I have become the fourth man on our legal squad.”

Editor's note: An earlier version of this post identified Georgina Armstrong as Georgina Anderson.