One of the touchiest topics on the Town Council agenda for Wednesday, June 15, is how much taxpayers will be liable to pay for past, present and future legal troubles. There are not one but two high-profile controversies coming before the Council on Wednesday.
One item centers on former Council President Jim Mageau and the other on present Council member Lisa DiBello. These items are related because both deal with the town’s obligation to indemnify town officials.
Under long-standing common law, we “indemnify” public officials, promising to stand by them when they get into legal trouble while performing their duties. It would be difficult to get anyone to serve in public office otherwise, since lawsuits are part of the everyday landscape of government.
But a public official's right to indemnification is clouded when the conduct in question isn’t clearly part of that official’s formal duties.
Mageau wants pay-back. Jim Mageau made Charlestown
Mageau has now presented the Town with a bill for $20,000 to cover his legal expenses. His lawyer cites RI’s indemnification law as the basis for the demand. But as I noted when I broke the news about Mageau’s claim, it’s not cut-and-dried, since there is this exception included in the state law:
The municipality or any fire district may decline to indemnify any elected or appointed fire district official, employee, official, or member for any misstatement, error, act, omission, or neglect if it resulted from willful, wanton, or malicious conduct on the part of the police officers, firefighters, elected or appointed fire district official, employee, official, or member.
Will the Council pay Mageau the $20,000 or will we see another draw-out Mageau drama? We’ll find out on Wednesday.
Private Lawyers in DiBello case? On May 9th, the Town Council tabled a request that the town pay for private lawyers to defend several present and former town officials accused by DiBello of participating in a retaliatory conspiracy against her. Town Solicitor Peter Ruggerio said the Council shouldn't vote on the request until they got an advisory opinion from the RI Ethics Commission on whether it might be a conflict of interest for Council members Gregg Avedisian and Marge Frank to vote on such a measure. Both are named in DiBello's complaint.
Presumably, they have that opinion because the request for town-funded lawyers for Avedisian and Frank as well as former Town Administrator Richard Sartor, present Administrator Bill DiLibero, Police Chief Jack Shippee and GIS coordinator Steve McCandless is back on the agenda.
Three former Council members named in DiBello’s complaint have not, as yet, requested town-funded lawyers: Forrester Safford, Candi Dunn and Richard Hosp.
Also since the last meeting the Westerly Sun's Chris Keegan reported that Lisa DiBello’s lawyer plans to ask the state Human Rights Commission to allow DiBello to skip the administrative complaint process and go straight into state court with her charges.
If DiBello does move her case directly into state Superior Court, that ups the ante for the town and for the nine individuals.
I summarized DiBello’s case in March. You can read Lisa DiBello’s charges against the Town and against the nine present and former town officials here, starting on page 7 (you can ignore the six pages of tax abatement papers at the beginning of the document).
Town voters approved an additional $100,000 for litigation when they approved the town budget on June 6. Just the retainers alone for six more lawyers will eat up that $100K, so we’ll all have to wait and see what the Council does on Wednesday.
Author: Will Collette