www.montereycountyweekly.com December 28, 2023-January 3, 2024 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 15 Before he won a seat on the Pacific Grove City Council in 2020, Luke Coletti was a close observer of city government and an exacting critic. His campaign platform was largely this critical perspective. He gave Ben Harvey, the city manager at the time, a grade of F- for his performance in an interview with the Weekly. When it came time in 2021 to renew Harvey’s contract, Coletti was the lone vote against it. Coletti’s outward criticism of Harvey culminated in July when Harvey resigned in exchange for a $440,000 payout and a provision that he would drop all claims against the city, as staff writer Pam Marino has reported. Harvey filed a claim of workplace mistreatment against Coletti in 2022, and a third-party investigator sustained Harvey’s complaints. That Coletti and Harvey were pitted against each other was unsurprising to anyone observing Pacific Grove city government. But there’s a pattern: At least three other similar claims of workplace harassment have been filed by city staff members against Coletti. Two remain under active investigation. Beyond that, multiple staff members have departed from City Hall. Former housing manager Anastacia Wyatt left for the City of Monterey; former community development director Alyson Hunter left for Marina. In a resignation letter in 2022, Hunter cited “aggressive questioning” as a reason for her departure. Tough questioning is one thing. Workplace bullying is another. And Coletti seems intent on continuing to cross that line. On Dec. 6, he introduced an ordinance codifying councilmembers’ inquiry authority, or their ability to seek information directly from city staff, as expressed in the P.G. city charter. In Coletti’s telling, “We are simply codifying existing law.” But the proposed ordinance has raised eyebrows from the labor relations representative for the Pacific Grove General Employees Association, which has demanded a meet-and-confer with city officials. “This has impacts on working conditions,” says Ryan Heron of UPEC 792. “It strikes me as highly unusual that rank-and-file city employees would report directly to city council members.” But for Coletti, this is the normal course of business. On Dec. 18, he complained to the Weekly and asked us to retract six articles. Our attorney, Roger Myers, wrote back on Dec. 20 notifying Coletti we would do no such thing. Myers added: “Correcting an actual mistake is clearly not your intent, as the Weekly was clearly not mistaken. Rather, your apparent intent is to attempt to do to the Weekly what the city’s investigation found you had done to the former city manager and other city staff: ‘bullying.’ The Weekly will not be intimidated.” We will not, but P.G. staff who are simply trying to run a city surely might be. There can be a fine line between elected officials holding city staff accountable—certainly part of their job expectation—and being meddlesome bullies. In Coletti’s telling, he is doing an excellent job, “probably the best city councilmember there has been in years. The reason is, I ask questions.” How many questions—and how respectfully they are delivered, and how nitpicky or hostile they are—is another matter. (Coletti declined to speak about the complaints against him, because they are confidential personnel matters, but suggests: “Maybe the problem isn’t with the councilmember, maybe the problem is with staff.”) Asking questions is good. Interrogating staff to the point they are disempowered from doing the work the public expects them to do is not. And yet Coletti persists, righteously. There is a real cost to this conduct. With at least four complaints filed against him, there are the third-party investigations, not to mention potential liability for the city. There’s the exodus of capable staff, and Harvey’s $440,000 package. In analyzing the 2022 investigation, a partner with the Renne Public Law Group wrote that P.G. “does not tolerate or condone Mr. Coletti’s behavior.” You might expect Coletti’s fellow council members to take action against this disruptive behavior. Not only have they failed publicly issue a censure or reprimand, but an amended code of conduct remains stalled. If Coletti wants to run City Hall, perhaps he should seek a job there; there are openings. Sara Rubin is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com. Bully Pulpit One Pacific Grove councilmember is taking a wrecking ball to City Hall. By Sara Rubin Everything New…Squid is celebrating the new year quietly, with Squid’s trusty bulldog companion Rosco P. Coltrane on the couch, a bowl of shrimp-flavored popcorn and a glass of Prosecco. Attending crowded parties with Covid on the rise is not Squid’s idea of fun—like a bad penny, the virus keeps showing up. Speaking of which, Squid discovered an early pandemic-era dustup in Carmel is still plaguing the city, three-and-a-half years later. It stems from local stained glass artist Theresa Buccola taking offense at an emergency order to close Carmel Beach over Fourth of July weekend in 2020. Buccola, insisting she had a “God-given right to walk in nature,” defied the order, then was arrested and taken to Monterey County Jail. She was charged with “entering a closed disaster area” and possession of tear gas, stemming from the arresting officer confiscating the bear mace she was carrying while exercising her God-given right on one of the safest beaches on the planet. Buccola’s case kept pinging in Monterey County Superior Court until this past July, when the District Attorney moved to dismiss, citing “furtherance of justice.” Squid guesses the time and money wasn’t worth it when there are more serious crimes to chase. Case not closed, however, because Buccola has become a one-woman warrior against Carmel, regularly posting to social media her grievances against the city for supposedly restricting people’s freedoms. In 2022 Buccola filed a federal lawsuit against Carmel, insisting her Fourth Amendment rights were violated. She’s asking for $52 million plus punitive damages, a public apology and a promise that the “tyrannical behavior by public servants in ‘closing’ Carmel Beach will never again befall plaintiff’s neighbors and the peaceful People of Monterey County.” In May, Buccola filed a “writ of prohibition” against a few Monterey County Superior Court judges and the City of Carmel; it was denied by Judge Carrie Panetta. In court papers, Buccola referred to the Superior Court as the “inferior tribunal,” and insisted everyone—from the officers who arrested her to the judges she’s appeared in front of since 2020—did not have jurisdiction. She cites the Founding Fathers and quotes the Bible, arguing God’s law is above all else. In one scene Buccola relayed in a Dec. 8 filing, Buccola said she was arrested for failing to appear in court in 2021. Going full-on colonial-style, she demanded the officer “take her to a magistrate,” but the officer drove right on by the exit to the Monterey courthouse and took her straight to jail in Salinas. Squid’s colleague asked Buccola why after so many years she’s still pressing her case. “Somebody has to hold them accountable to the rule of law,” she says. A jury trial is scheduled for July 10, 2024. It’s so hard to ring in the new when the old insists on sticking around. the local spin SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. “The Weekly will not be intimidated.” Send Squid a tip: squid@mcweekly.com
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==