MORGAN HILL
– A local attorney accused of hiring a private investigator to
prove that the city manager was having an affair with the city
attorney fought back Tuesday, saying it is not illegal to keep
watch on a government official.
MORGAN HILL – A local attorney accused of hiring a private investigator to prove that the city manager was having an affair with the city attorney fought back Tuesday, saying it is not illegal to keep watch on a government official.
“This is America and, as the Supreme Court recently restated, we do not punish people for scrutinizing their government,” said Bruce Tichinin, the private attorney, in a statement Tuesday. “If investigatory efforts are somehow illegal, in and of themselves, without anybody having actually broken the law, who is next? The media? Sixty Minutes? Michael Moore? Woodward and Bernstein?”
The council will take up the issue at a 5 p.m. meeting tonight at City Hall.
Tichinin allegedly hired Santa Cruz investigator Brian Carey to follow City Manager Ed Tewes while he was on city business in Southern California in February 2003. City Attorney Helene Leichter was out of town at the same time.
Tewes has denied having an improper relationship. Leichter declined to make a statement. Both are married and have children.
A 10-page report prepared by Councilmen Greg Sellers and Larry Carr after a year-long investigation into the surveillance suggested that Tichinin wanted proof of the affair as leverage in two possible instances, one involving Councilwoman Hedy Chang; the other, a client in a land-use issue.
Earlier this year, Chang briefly hired Tichinin to defend her against claims that the councilwoman had defamed and harassed Leichter by alleging an “adulterous sexual relationship” with Tewes. In the city report, Chang denied that she knew Tichinin had hired the investigator.
A second possible impetus for Tichinin hiring surveillance of Tewes is a client, Howard Vierra, whom the attorney represents in a land-use issue. In a meeting in February 2003, the report said that Vierra asked Tewes what he had to do to get the city manager “on my side.” Tewes was opposing Vierra’s plans and, as the city’s highest ranking employee, his opinions are seriously considered by the council.
“It is distressing at this late date in the history of our country that any governmental entity, including the City of Morgan Hill, would threaten or seek to retaliate against a lawyer or any citizen whomsoever for investigating the affairs of government or possible issues of legitimate concern,” Tichinin said. “It has been said that ‘those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them,’ ” Tichinin said.
After issuing the three-paragraph statement Tichinin declined to answer additional questions until after Wednesday’s special meeting. He said he would not attend the meeting and that his statement would speak for him.
Sellers and Carr said council members felt they had to take action to discover why Tewes was being followed because the city is committed “to preserving a safe working environment for its employees.” Sellers said he estimated the city has spent about $50,000 to date on the case, including hiring its own private investigator.
Chang consulted with her attorney Tuesday afternoon and was advised to make no further statements until after Wednesday’s meeting. The councilmen’s report was released late Friday at the beginning of the three-day holiday weekend.
On Monday Chang said once the facts were heard, she was certain her name would be cleared.
The Sellers/Carr report included a range of possible actions the council might take against Chang and/or Tichinin, from doing nothing, through censure and condemnation, to referring the cases to the District Attorney and the State Bar for disciplinary action.
“The city can threaten to turn me into the state bar, the district attorney or the attorney general,” Tichinin’s statement went on. “It will not deter me from exercising my constitutional rights or those of my clients to vindicate their rights. This is not the first time in my 32-year legal career that one governmental agency or another has sought to intimidate me or my clients, and I surmise it will not be the last.”
Over his 32-year career, most of which has been in Morgan Hill, Tichinin has gone head-to-head with city officials several times. He was a member of the Save El Toro Committee that stopped the development of El Toro Mountain, the city’s signature peak, when developers wanted to carve off the top and erect a restaurant reached by a tram attached to the mountain’s side.
Tichinin campaigned for the first growth control initiative in Morgan Hill after out-of-control development led to sewage running in the streets and a threat of triple sessions in the public schools. He went to court after the measure was adopted to keep developers from skirting the law and continuing with their projects.
In 1982 Tichinin represented residents living near the sewage plant in Gilroy, which Morgan Hill shares, after employees reported they had been instructed to dump two million gallons of raw, untreated sewage a day into the Pajaro River, and keep quiet about it.
In 1990 he uncovered a secret contract the then City Council had with the developers in the Cochrane Road area, behind the former hospital, that would allow them to avoid the controls of a second growth-control initiative, known as Measure P.
Tichinin was on the board of South County Alternatives, the predecessor of Community Solutions; he was a founding director of the Morgan Hill Community Foundation and has been on the planning board of Independence Day, Inc. – president for three years – the group that produces Morgan Hill’s two-day July 4th celebrations.
“It may be that these matters have to be resolved in court,” Tichinin said of his recent battle, “with the ultimate loser being the city treasury. Perhaps that will not be necessary. I will extend the city an opportunity to engage in some sober reflection before taking my next step.”
The full council will discuss the report in a meeting open to the public, 5 p.m. Wednesday, July 7, at City Hall, 17555 Peak Ave. Details: 779-2101.
Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at ch********@*************es.com or phoning 779-4106 Ext. 201.
