Getting Even Gets Expensive
[Many residents received a recent e-mail from former Commissioner Jose Coppen concerning IRBeHEARD’s criticism of our city’s spending on lawsuits. An offer to post Jose’s e-mail on the IRBeHEARD blog was declined; however, our rebuttal to Coppen’s comments, specifically about the Grieshaber matter, is below.]
Anyone who ever met Jose Coppen knows his brilliance. He has done good things for IRB. I like him and I respect him immensely. I must, however, disagree with the former commissioner’s insistence that the City’s investment in lawsuits is prudent.
Anyone who’s ever been through the legal process knows that the financial aspect of every lawsuit must be part of any decision to move forward. This is especially true in view of IRB’s newly discovered financial problems. Only our five sitting commissioners can decide if “getting” Grieshaber is important enough to lose one of our police officers. It’s all about trade-offs.
Without passing judgment on whether or not our former City Manager “blew town” with more than his fair share, Al Grieshaber has been trashed publicly in mass distributed e-mails, in print and even from the dais…all captured on tape and a matter of public record. His current employer was even directly contacted at one point. What potential exposure does the City have for these scurrilous statements if the court exonerates Al?
Let’s really go crazy and say the court decides in our favor; we still cannot recoup enough of our legal fees to get whole—putting IRB even farther behind the financial 8-ball. Grieshaber won’t do jail time. The suit filed, at Jose’s insistence, is civil in nature; getting a civil judgment and COLLECTING a civil judgment are mutually exclusive. When the City pursued criminal charges against former City Manager Grieshaber, law enforcement officials concluded that no criminal act had occurred. Rumor has it they felt that it was actually the City who breached the contract by cutting Grieshaber the “now infamous” check in the first place.
IRB made recent overtures toward settling this dispute; Grieshaber’s answer was to beef up his counterclaims. So, the meter continues to spin like a porch ceiling fan in Hurricane Ike on a lawsuit that never should have been launched in the first place.
How much is budgeted for this lawsuit next year and what current services or community events will be scrapped from the IRB roster to afford keeping the Grieshaber lawsuit alive? Again, it’s all about trade-offs and how our taxpayers want to see their money spent during these financially troubling times. From this writer's perspective, grudges aren’t something that should be taxpayer subsidized—even in boom times.
Nancy Obarski
Beach Trail/IRB
Anyone who ever met Jose Coppen knows his brilliance. He has done good things for IRB. I like him and I respect him immensely. I must, however, disagree with the former commissioner’s insistence that the City’s investment in lawsuits is prudent.
Anyone who’s ever been through the legal process knows that the financial aspect of every lawsuit must be part of any decision to move forward. This is especially true in view of IRB’s newly discovered financial problems. Only our five sitting commissioners can decide if “getting” Grieshaber is important enough to lose one of our police officers. It’s all about trade-offs.
Without passing judgment on whether or not our former City Manager “blew town” with more than his fair share, Al Grieshaber has been trashed publicly in mass distributed e-mails, in print and even from the dais…all captured on tape and a matter of public record. His current employer was even directly contacted at one point. What potential exposure does the City have for these scurrilous statements if the court exonerates Al?
Let’s really go crazy and say the court decides in our favor; we still cannot recoup enough of our legal fees to get whole—putting IRB even farther behind the financial 8-ball. Grieshaber won’t do jail time. The suit filed, at Jose’s insistence, is civil in nature; getting a civil judgment and COLLECTING a civil judgment are mutually exclusive. When the City pursued criminal charges against former City Manager Grieshaber, law enforcement officials concluded that no criminal act had occurred. Rumor has it they felt that it was actually the City who breached the contract by cutting Grieshaber the “now infamous” check in the first place.
IRB made recent overtures toward settling this dispute; Grieshaber’s answer was to beef up his counterclaims. So, the meter continues to spin like a porch ceiling fan in Hurricane Ike on a lawsuit that never should have been launched in the first place.
How much is budgeted for this lawsuit next year and what current services or community events will be scrapped from the IRB roster to afford keeping the Grieshaber lawsuit alive? Again, it’s all about trade-offs and how our taxpayers want to see their money spent during these financially troubling times. From this writer's perspective, grudges aren’t something that should be taxpayer subsidized—even in boom times.
Nancy Obarski
Beach Trail/IRB
2 comments:
I think you may have been overly generous with your describing Jose brilliant. According to an article in the Bee today, our financial woos happened during his tenure as a government official of IRB. Our “Financial Warrior”, as Leo often describes him, is financially inept. Jose, through deception and sending out misleading information, has brought our town to ruins. Had he kept a watchful eye on our finances, instead of spewing hatred for anyone who opposed him, we might not be in this mess. I’m not saying he also should burden the fault, but all the turmoil in town was stirred up by him with his blog and surrogate Leo. The only reason he wants to continue to pursue our ex-town manager is because he was outsmarted, which based on the report in the Bee today, isn’t that difficult to do. Now he has set his sights on you. Be careful Nancy.
If you ask me, I think a number of people are to blame on the financial problems in town, especially staff that hid the problem. Jose just diverted a lot of attention to himself and stupid childish things. Why the commissioners would continue to spend money we don't have on projects like the study or the library makes no sense. O, that's right, it's not their money, it's ours, so they don't really care. I do agree we should walk away from the lawsuit and cut our losses. If Jose is so adamant about going after him, why doesn’t he as a private citizen? O, that’s right, he doesn’t want to spend his money, but has no problem spending ours.
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