Carmel City Council accepts city attorney’s qualifications, while slamming media scrutiny.

It’s been almost a year since Carmel hired its city attorney, Glen Mozingo, but questions about the resume he submitted to City Council continue to dog him. Those questions began even before he took the job on July 15, 2017. On July 13, the Weekly reported the “Congressional Gold Medal” and “United States Congressional Medal of Distinction” Mozingo listed were not lofty accolades, but rather tokens of gratitude from the Republican National Congressional Committee, usually in exchange for donations.

On March 27, former Monterey Herald editor Royal Calkins published a story for Voices of Monterey Bay, pointing out possible discrepancies in Mozingo’s resume, including work he claims he did for several Southern California cities; city officials said they do not remember Mozingo. And on May 1, Carmel attorney Neil Shapiro filed a Public Records Act request with the city, asking to see the documentation provided by Mozingo when he applied for the job. Shapiro was given only Mozingo’s cover letter and resume, already available to the public.

In a closed-session meeting with City Council on June 4, Mozingo brought with him an array of documents purporting to back up claims on his resume. The next day, Mayor Pro Tem Carrie Theis read a statement, declaring that “in light of recent libelous” comments challenging Mozingo’s resume, the city attorney had voluntarily shared the documents with them.

“We can assure you this thorough review confirmed that Mr. Mozingo’s resume was correct in every manner” and all challenges are “without merit,” Theis said. She mentioned “national Republican congressional committee awards” in the list of documents the council reviewed – but she did not note Mozingo had not identified them as such on his resume.

The Weekly submitted requests for public records after the meeting, seeking copies of what Mozingo had circulated in closed session.

In a response on June 4, City Clerk Tom Graves denied the request, citing three reasons: it was a personnel matter, the documents were not physically in the city’s possession – they’d been circulated and viewed, but not kept – and the city attorney is a contract position.

“The personal effects of Mr. Mozingo have not now, nor have they ever been, in the possession of the City of its elected leadership,” Graves wrote.

David Snyder, executive director of the San Francisco-based First Amendment Coalition, says that’s not a reason to withhold records. Under California’s Public Records Act, it does not matter if the city does not hold the documents physically, Snyder says; if Mozingo provided them during official city business and a member of the public requests them, they must be made available. “[Mozingo] has an obligation to present the records, or the city has an obligation to get them,” he says.

Snyder also rebuts the city’s contentions that the documents are exempt because it was a personnel matter or that Mozingo is a contractor. “This is resume information, these are basic facts about his work history,” Snyder says. “The documents that evidence his work history should be disclosed.”

The Weekly filed a follow-up request for the records on June 8; the city has until June 18 to respond. Mozingo did not respond to questions for this story, and Theis declined to comment.