Council Denies Open Meeting Violation as D.A. Investigates

City officials defended their actions Tuesday amid a probe by the district attorney's office looking into allegations that the violated open records laws in deciding not to fill Councilman Clarence Shaw's seat.

Monrovia resident Jules Bagneris filed a complaint with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Public Integrity division alleging that the council violated the Brown Act when it decided not to appoint a caretaker to Shaw's seat. and will be absent from the council for at least one year.

At issue is whether the council needed to publicly discuss its reasoning when it decided against temporarily replacing Shaw with a proxy.

But City Attorney Craig Steele insisted that since the council simply took no action in the matter, it therefore did not violate the Brown Act. He said the council was under no obligation to publicly consider filling the seat.

"There’s no need to take a decision like that if you’re not inclined to do so," Steele said. "I think it's always just been assumed that Councilman Shaw will be returning to Monrovia and taking his seat again."

Monrovia Mayor Mary Ann Lutz said the council was not doing "anything out of the ordinary" by leaving Shaw's seat open while he is away. Steele noted that the seat is not actually vacant and remains Shaw's while he is deployed.

District Attorney Review

Jennifer Lentz Snyder, Assistant Head Deputy of the DA's Public Integrity Division, said in an interview Tuesday that her office had opened a 90-day "review" to look into the allegations that the council acted improperly.

"The allegation is that [Bagneris] believes the council must have had a discussion about filling or not filling a councilman's council seat," Snyder said. "It appears [to Bagneris] that they made a decision outside of a council meeting because it wasn't on the agenda."

Snyder said that she would be reviewing council agendas and video footage from the meetings to determine if a violation took place. But finding evidence that a such an illegal discussion occurred could be tricky.

"If no action is taken on something, it would be very difficult to prove that was the result of some off-the-record discussion," she said.

If Snyder finds evidence that the city violated the law, her office would send a letter to the city explaining the violation and demanding that it be corrected, she said. The city would have 30 days to correct the violation before it could be sued by Snyder's office in civil court, she said.

Attorney Robert Silverstein, who has repeatedly sued the city and the Gold Line Construction Authority over the last few years in an effort to stop a Gold Line project from condemning his client's land, addressed the council Tuesday and said their discussion of the matter Tuesday evening violated the Brown Act because it was not listed on the council agenda.

"It occurred to me that I was sitting through a Brown Act violation," Silverstein said.

Steele dismissed Silverstein's assertion, noting that the act "specificially allows [council] members to briefly respond to questions posed by members of the public."

Several residents took to the podium at Tuesday's City Council meeting and lent their support to the council's actions.

Pam Fitzpatrick, co-owner of the , said the controversy was a "nonissue."

"I feel ably represented by you here," Fitzpatrick said. "I am honoring the fact that Councilman Shaw is doing his duty and serving his country."