A FOR, UM, EFFORT… Squid wants to know: If a pine cone falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, did it really fall? What about, say, a newspaper called the Carmel Pine Cone? Squid admits enjoying the circular, philosophical questions it sometimes poses in editorials – those in the vein of, if we don’t see poor people, it means they must not exist. (Which the paper did, astoundingly, after the Weekly’s 2012 story on hunger in Monterey County.) But even Squid had to clap tentacles together at Pine Cone Publisher Paul Miller’s press release this week, announcing his paper is suing the city of Carmel because he wants a copy of new Planning Director Rob Mullane’s resume.
“It’s very unfortunate that we have to take such a routine request to court,” Miller quoted himself in a statement. “We’ve been unable to get the resume any other way.”
A curious Squid dipped a tentacle into Carmel public records, and turned up: absolutely nothing. As City Administrator Jason Stilwell explains in a Sept. 17 email to Miller, there’s no resume to distribute – the hiring process was done via a recruiting firm, which had Mullane fill out paperwork instead of submitting a resume.
“As I indicated the City is not permitted to disclose personnel information under the California Public Records Act,” Stilwell wrote to Miller.
So wait: Can you invoke a rule about disclosing something you don’t have if you don’t have it? Is Squid siding with Miller? Has the world gone mad?
This cephalopod is all for transparency. But here Squid wants to offer a little tippy-wippy to Miller: There’s this website called LinkedIn. On it, Mullane lists his job history and education – Duke ’93 (bachelor’s in geology) and University of Hawaii at Manoa ’96 (master’s in geology and geophysics). Squid would start there before suing. Might have saved some legal fees; we all know how much Miller hates government waste.
MEDIA MATTERS… Speaking of bizarro world, Squid was sad to read the Herald has decided to no longer do endorsements. Squid figured that with all the time Editor Royal Calkins seems to have on his hands, trolling the Weekly’s Facebook page and snarking the paper’s food coverage, there would be ample time to decide if Measure K backers were actually lying through their teeth. Calkins referenced a few things in making the case, including reader disenfranchisement, and that Publisher Gary “Darth” Omernick and circulation director Mazi Kavoosi – members of the paper’s editorial board – are spread thin due to responsibilities for other publications. Squid wonders, though: Is management spread too thin because of other responsibilities, or because they’re getting ready to sell their building, move and enter union negotiations with a weary, spread-too-thin staff?
(1) comment
With all due respect to Squid, Squid is missing the point about Carmel editor Paul Miller’s lawsuit against the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea. The issue is not about Carmel Community Planning & Building Director Rob Mullane’s resume being on the web; the issue is the City’s duty and responsibility to make public records accessible to the public. After the City denied The Carmel Pine Cone Mullane’s resume, Paul Miller sued the City. Two days later, the City Council met in closed session and settled the lawsuit by essentially giving Paul Miller Mullane’s resume.
Moreover, on the one hand, Carmel City Administrator Jason Stilwell says he is concerned about the efficient use of taxpayer monies, but on the other hand, Stilwell authorizes the hiring of law firm Liebert Cassidy Whitmore to cover for the City refusing to make public records accessible and expending thousands of taxpayer dollars for work a competent city clerk should perform.
Bottom Line: Should Carmel residents support a city administrator who says one thing and does another? Should Carmel residents support a city council which supports a city administrator who expends thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars on Liebert Cassidy Whitmore legal advice and then when the city council is confronted with a lawsuit rejects LCW legal advice and settles the case in two days? Answer: A responsible, concerned, informed citizenry would not support said city administrator and city council for such acts.
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