Lawsuit over county’s private meetings heads to court, criminal investigation continues.

It looked like the advocacy group Save Our Peninsula Committee lost in court on Jan. 22.

The group filed a lawsuit about a week earlier asking the Monterey County Superior Court to halt a common practice by the County Board of Supervisors: holding closed-session evaluations of its top employees. Their main piece of evidence, Exhibit 1, is a 20-page PowerPoint that emerged from an employee’s performance review – and which set in motion a criminal investigation by the District Attorney’s office and the SOP lawsuit.

The PowerPoint accompanied a closed-session presentation by Water Resources Agency General Manager David Chardavoyne, and suggests the discussion may have broached policy decisions, which should be covered in open meetings. Chief among them: Chardavoyne’s defense of a Salinas River water right the state had threatened to revoke as part of the state’s use-it-or-lose-it policy.

While waiting for a complete hearing on the lawsuit, the committee asked a judge for a temporary restraining order that would force the county to at least – temporarily – halt the closed-door meetings. But Monterey County Superior Court Judge Tom Wills denied the request.

“It certainly sounds suspicious, but I’ve got to have more than suspicions to make a ruling granting such an order,” Wills said at the Jan. 22 hearing. “There’s no real authentication of what appears to be held out as the smoking gun, Exhibit 1. I don’t know who got that document.”

But it will be a different story when the case returns to court on April 14.

In the hundreds of pages of documents filed since the restraining order hearing is one unassuming piece: a stipulation of facts, signed by both SOP attorney Richard Rosenthal and Deputy County Counsel Kay Reimann. It sounds just like the “smoking gun” Wills was looking for: “The 20-page document… was presented in the joint closed session meeting. The facts are deemed undisputed and Exhibit 1 is deemed authentic.”

The supervisors have long been conducting closed-door meetings, but it was only the leaked document late last year – later to become Exhibit 1 – that drew attention to the practice.

Records indicate that in 2013, the Supes conducted 58 performance evaluations of the county’s five top staffers, including Chardavoyne. The practice of more frequent reviews came about thanks mostly to Supervisor Jane Parker pushing for more accountability. But even Parker concedes the practice might’ve gotten out of hand: “It could be an example of the frog in the kettle, the heat turning up so gradually you just don’t notice,” she says. “I don’t think there were Brown Act violations – maybe a little bit here and there.”

If SOP wins, the supes would be required to produce audio recordings of performance evaluations going forward, and open up confidential documents from previous closed sessions so the court can determine whether violations of the Brown Act, California’s open meetings law, occurred.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Terry Spitz is investigating those allegations at the request of County Counsel Charles McKee. If the court opens a trove of protected records – and potential violations – “that could have a big impact on our investigation,” Spitz says.