On Feb. 28, a Wednesday, the Seaside City Council held a special meeting in closed session to discuss three things: potential litigation (three matters) and performance evaluations of both City Manager Jaime Fontes and City Attorney Sheri Damon.
The first minute or so of the meeting was streamed online from the conference room at Seaside City Hall, and seated at the table were members of the City Council, Fontes and Damon, City Clerk Dominique Davis and former city attorney Don Freeman, who long served in that role for both Seaside and Carmel.
While a closed-session meeting like this is not entirely out of the ordinary, events in City Hall in the six weeks since have been anything but, including follow-up performance reviews of the city’s two top staffers, Fontes and Damon who, documents show, are at odds about personnel matters.
The city entered into a contract with Freeman in June 2022 to act as a special counsel for the city at an amount capped at $24,000. During discussion of the matter on April 4, Councilmember Alex Miller asked Damon about the approximately $63,000 the city paid to the law firm Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Rudd & Romo, which was to help Freeman conduct investigations of city personnel. Miller was wondering why that contract never went out to bid, which Miller believed to be the legally appropriate course of action. Damon told Miller that a clause in Freeman’s contract gave him license to hire outside legal counsel irrespective of the cost cap. (The council approved an amendment to Freeman’s contract 4-1, with Miller dissenting.)
Also on the April 4 agenda were closed-session discussions regarding the performance of both Fontes and Damon, although Fontes missed the meeting due to testing positive for Covid, so council tabled his review.
That came two weeks after Fontes sent an email on March 21 to all councilmembers alleging that Damon, in recent months, had “shown a complete disregard” for city code and the Brown Act. “Instead of protecting the city from liability, Ms. Damon’s actions have invited liability” with respect to the ongoing personnel investigations of city staff, he wrote. Fontes wrote that only the city manager is vested with the power to authorize personnel investigations.
Before that, on March 4, an attorney representing Finance Director Victor Damiani sent Damon a letter that stated Damiani “is concerned about potential retaliation from you” because “[he] provided direct testimony against you in a 2023 investigation of you.” It also expressed that Damiani was concerned about “unauthorized payment of outside counsel services.”
On Feb. 27, Project Manager Adolfo Gonzalez sent an email to then-HR director Sandra Floyd outlining a host of complaints regarding the ongoing investigations, and also indicated he’s retained legal counsel. Floyd forwarded that email to Mayor Ian Oglesby, adding, “The volume of complaints and the severity I am receiving are astonishing.”
Floyd, who Fontes hired in June 2023, resigned; her last day was March 1. Other employees that Fontes hired have resigned as well – Carolyn Burke, assistant public works director, had her last day with the city April 5. On April 9, Damiani (who was hired in 2020 under former city manager Craig Malin) gave notice – his last day will be May 3.
---
Clarification 4/12 1pm: This story has been updated to clarify that Victor Damiani was not hired when Jaime Fontes was city manager.