Carmel fights back against records request lawsuit and makes it personal.

There are a whole host of defenses employed by those who find themselves at the receiving end of a lawsuit. There are the scholarly approaches that rely on case law and then there are more ambiguous arguments like seeking to assign blame to an “act of God.”

In the case of Royal Calkins v. Carmel-by-the-Sea, the city is apparently relying on the “liar, liar, pants on fire” line of defense.

“Calkins’ Petition is riddled with falsehoods and unsupported innuendos,” states Carmel Deputy City Attorney Gerard Rose, in his declaration to the court filed in Monterey County Superior Court on July 10.

Rose also uses the opportunity to slam Calkins as a “failed journalist who has a reputation for publishing phony stories and false statements about public figures” and accuses him of “carrying on a one-man crusade to besmirch the reputation of Glen Mozingo, the contract city attorney of the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea.”

He adds later, “Calkins’ false allegations against Mr. Mozingo in his Petition do not entitle him to waste Mr. Mozingo’s time and effort in what is obviously a misplaced and unlawful attempt to satisfy his prurient interest in trying to bring down Mr. Mozingo.”

Calkins response: Carmel has no case and is attacking the messenger.

Calkins’ lawsuit filed July 9 seeks a judge’s order to compel Carmel to hand over records related to Mozingo’s resume; he was hired by the City Council one year ago. Mozingo made some claims on the resume that seemed suspect from the start, like his claim he was the recipient of two Congressional medals, including a Gold Medal. Both turned out to be tokens from the Republican National Congressional Committee, as the Weekly reported last July.

Calkins’ attorney, Carmel attorney Neil Shapiro, filed a Public Records Act request in May seeking any correspondence or other supporting documents related to Mozingo’s hiring. Then on June 4, Mozingo provided a number of documents pertaining to his resume to the Carmel City Council in closed session, labeled on the agenda as a personnel matter related to a performance review of the city attorney.

In open session the next day, all five council members said they were satisfied with Mozingo’s resume and the supporting documents, while simultaneously labeling media questions about his claims as “libelous.”

Calkins made another request for the records shared by Mozingo with the council, and was denied. (The Weekly has made two requests for the same documents, and was denied both times.)

Carmel’s response to the lawsuit denies all of Calkins’ claims that Mozingo made false statements on his resume, and argues the city does not have to share the records with the journalist, because Calkins failed to “legally or factually justify his demand for any of the documents.”

Under California law, any member of the public—not just journalists—may file requests for public records using the Public Records Act.

In his filing with the court, Rose says that the city supplied the documents requested in May. In fact, the city only provided Mozingo’s resume, which was already available to the public. What Calkins was seeking (and what the Weekly also requested) were the supporting documents presented to council meant to prove the claims made on the resume.

In court papers, Rose writes that June 4 closed session discussion was a privileged attorney-client conversation.

The second time the city denied the Weekly’s request for Mozingo’s records, the city stated the closed session was about pending litigation—a different reason for denying the request than the city’s first denial, which was on the basis that there were no responsive records available. (It also was not factual: The June 4 City Council agenda listed the closed session as a performance review, not as pending litigation.)

According to attorney David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, public records are exempt from disclosure based on pending litigation only if there is actual active, ongoing litigation. (Calkins filed his lawsuit one month after the June 4 closed session.)

Rose also tries to argue that Mozingo is entitled to privacy under California’s constitution, however, Snyder says privacy includes things like home address and medical records. For a public official, records related to work history would not be considered private.

Rose’s statement repeatedly calls Calkins a liar, and points to a case from the early 1980s in which a developer sued Calkins—then working for the Fresno Bee—and other reporters and parent company McClatchy Newspapers for libel. The case was settled in 1985 for no money. McClatchy agreed to print clarifications on the front pages of both the Fresno Bee and Sacramento Bee, and donate money to a university communications program.

In an email response, Calkins says he and some Carmel residents have been raising questions about Mozingo's claims for months.

"When the City Council finally got the nerve to join in the questioning, (Mozingo) created an alternative reality by answering questions that hadn’t been asked and ducking the real questions even though they were behind closed doors," Calkins writes. 

Mozingo is attacking the messenger, he says, and he believes a judge will agree.

On Thursday, July 12, Shapiro and Rose stood before Superior Court Judge Susan J. Matcham in the first hearing related to Calkins’ suit, which concerned only matters of scheduling future hearings. Marcham set a hearing to listen to arguments at 9am, Sept. 7, in Department 14 of the Monterey courthouse.

Editor's Note: This post was updated with a response from Royal Calkins.