Secontine’s Investigation to be Released
The East Lansing City Council came out of closed session at last night’s (Feb. 20) meeting and made a major motion: To waive attorney-client privilege on the investigation by J. Randall Secontine that looked into an anonymous complaint alleging, among other things, overreach by former Mayor Ron Bacon.
The motion was passed 3-2 with Councilmember Dana Watson voting against and Mayor George Brookover taking a long pause before casting his “no” vote. Councilmembers Mark Meadows and Erik Altmann along with Mayor Pro Tem Kerry Ebersole Singh voted in favor of waiving the attorney-client privilege.
Singh motioned to release the report after a lengthy closed session:
“I move to, under the appropriate MCL, to make a motion to release the memo, waiving privilege for the memo, other than names,” Singh said, before asking City Attorney Anthony Chubb if this was the correct motion. Chubb asked Singh if she intended to motion to remove attorney-client privilege from Secontine’s report, while maintaining the privilege on individual’s names. She said she was.
Watson offered a friendly amendment to take out gender references, which Singh accepted.
Meadows motioned to amend, adding language that an unredacted copy of the report would be available on the city’s website by Friday, Feb. 23 but the amendment did not pass.
Watson said she would not vote for Meadows’ amendment because she believes employees thought they would be anonymous while complying with the investigation. Meadows responded with language provided to employees that “confidentiality is not guaranteed.”
There was little discussion about the vote to release the investigation outside of Watson giving a brief statement.
“We, again, had a pause because there was information that was possibly related to staff, as far as the redaction of their name and/or their identities, which would be their positions,” she said. “So, I’m sorry if we’re making this decision for the people that walked into the investigation under the thought process that their names and their positions would not be revealed… There is some writing that implies that possibly names were redacted but not positions.”
“As a public official, I knew what I said could possibly make it, but it didn’t, none of what I said made it to the report, nor was I circled back to on parts that did make it to the report,” Watson continued. “That’s all the discussion I’d like to say for now.”
The vote to waive attorney-client privilege is the latest development in a saga that goes back to last spring, when an anonymous complaint alleged overreach by Bacon and other members of city government. Secontine finished his report in October. The former Council held a special meeting days before the Nov. 7 City Council election, where it was decided to accept Secontine’s findings that assertions of a charter violation were “without merit” and hide the report behind attorney-client privilege.
This is a developing story. ELi has filed a Freedom Of Information Act request for Secontine’s investigation and will report as we find out more.