MORGAN HILL
– A five-month investigation into why a private investigator was
following Morgan Hill’s city manager could end with an attorney and
a city councilwoman in hot water.
MORGAN HILL – A five-month investigation into why a private investigator was following Morgan Hill’s city manager could end with an attorney and a city councilwoman in hot water.
The City Council will hear and discuss the report, and hear the other side of the story, in public at 5 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall.
The resulting report, prepared by Councilmen Greg Sellers and Larry Carr, reads like the script for a detective show. It alleges that attorney Bruce Tichinin – a long-time resident with a lengthy history of public involvement – hired the investigator to prove an “adulterous sexual relation” between the city manager and the city attorney. The report suggests two possible reasons why he may have done so.
Councilwoman Hedy Chang, the report states, had hired Tichinin to defend her against claims of defamation and harassment made against her by City Attorney Helene Leichter.
Leichter’s claims arose from statements allegedly made by Chang to others that Leichter and City Manager Ed Tewes were having the adulterous relationship. Both are married and have children.
The second possible reason stems from several land-use cases Tichinin is handling – which council will decide – taking into consideration recommendations by city staff, including the city manager.
Chang said Monday afternoon that she was sure her name would be cleared.
“I received the report Friday afternoon and strongly disagree with the assertions concerning me,” Chang said. “A detailed rebuttal will be issued after I have a chance to fully review it with my attorney.”
Chang, a two-term council member and former school board member, was also the 1994 Woman of the Year and has worked tirelessly for the Dayworker Center and other issues benefiting the local population. She said she hoped residents would remember who she is.
“The citizens of Morgan Hill have known me for a long time and know what kind of person I am. I am fully confident that, after the truth is out, my name will be completely cleared,” she said.
Tichinin did not return calls Monday asking for a statement.
The reports states that at a Feb. 3 lunch meeting between Tichinin, Tewes, Leichter and Tichinin’s client and financial partner, Howard Vierra, Vierra said he was disappointed that Tewes was “not on his side” in a land-use matter. Also present was Vierra’s wife.
“What would it take to get you on my side?” Vierra is quoted as asking in the report.
Tichinin is alleged to have told Tewes and Leichter that they risked a lawsuit seeking personal damages, saying he thought they had a personal interest in the outcome motivated by “personal animus related to ‘that other matter.’ ”
Since Chang had used the same language, Sellers and Carr in an interview Monday said they suspected this referred to Chang’s allegations of an improper relationship between Tewes and Leichter and Leichter’s claims of harassment against Chang.
At the meeting, Tewes mentioned an upcoming trip on city business. According to the report, later that afternoon, Chang phoned Tewes urging him “not to be angry” at Tichinin since he was no longer acting as her attorney in the defamation matter, trying, the report claimed, to distance herself.
Chang asked city staff about Tewes’ travel plans, including schedule and hotel reservation but did not contact him while he was at a League of California Cities meeting in Huntington Beach, the report states. The fact that Leichter would be out of town during the same period was known only to council members.
THE PRIVATE EYE
While Tewes was on his trip, the report said, he encountered several odd things.
First he returned to his room to find an order of hot chocolate for two that he had not ordered.
Carr and Sellers later found that Hyatt room service only takes orders from the phone in the room doing the ordering.
“It is possible that someone, other than hotel staff was in Tewes’ room,” Sellers said.
Next a League staffer mentioned that Hyatt hotel staff had changed a man’s room assignment to one across from Tewes’ room “because they were co-workers.” The report says the man in question told the bellboy who helped him move his belongings that he was a private investigator, explaining that “he needed to be close to Mr. Tewes to ‘keep and eye on him.’ ”
The hotel’s security director was alerted and notified the League staff.
“Mr. Tewes found the information very alarming,” the report said.
When Tewes left his room to check out, he did so loudly, thinking he could be followed. He waited in a hallway alcove where he saw a man walk past him with a video camera that appeared to be turned on.
“Upon seeing Mr. Tewes in the alcove,” the report said, “the man immediately diverted his camera.”
Tewes followed the man downstairs to the lobby. The man waited nearby until Tewes’ car arrived but did not follow.
DID CHANG KNOW?
In a later meeting with Carr, Chang said she couldn’t say anything about Tichinin’s role in the surveillance because she “didn’t know what he was going to do.”
“I told him not to do it, but he did it anyway,” Carr said Chang told him; she later said the same thing to Sellers.
The report concludes that, despite denials from Chang and Tichinin, that Chang did appear to have acted with Tichinin before and after the surveillance.
It concludes that the surveillance involved not only watching Tewes but deception in lying to the hotel staff and that Tichinin gave misleading information to the city attorney and initially lied to council members.
It concludes that Chang discussed the surveillance with Tichinin before and after it happened and that her unwillingness to tell what she knew caused the city to incur as much as $50,000 in investigative costs, to date.
Both Chang and Tichinin will be able to respond to the charges at Wednesday’s meeting.
Tewes provided this statement Monday.
“My family and I have been deeply disturbed to learn that a local attorney, with pending matters before the city government, arranged for a secret surveillance of my activities in an effort to discredit me and the city attorney,” Tewes wrote in a statement Monday. “That individual’s conduct is reckless and harmful. I am pleased that the City Council has understood the significance of this matter and has discovered important facts, and will now consider steps to hold those responsible to account.”
