The Poway City Council voted to make private emails between city attorneys and Councilmember Tony Blain public after Blain accused colleagues of trying to oust him from the council over an Army Reserve deployment.
The vote was 4-1, with Blain dissenting.
The topic of the 20 emails exchanged on March 10 and 11 related to his request to participate in City Council meetings remotely while he serves a stint with the California Reserve National Guard.
Blain wrote in his emails that he would provide the city staff with a redacted copy of his military orders when he receives them.
Blain told city attorneys the location of his deployment would be classified. In response, city attorneys told him he can only participate in council meetings remotely from a location that is reported to the city and residents and appears on the meeting agenda.
City attorneys also told him that his absence during the deployment would be excused.
A March 18 staff report said that Blain, both by email and publicly online, falsely accused the city attorney’s office and others of attempting to “kick him off Council” and combined two separate rules regarding remote participation and excused absences.
“Despite being informed repeatedly that absences during deployment would be excused, Councilmember Blain continued accusing the City Council and city attorney’s office of conspiring to get him off of the City Council and reached out to the media, sharing grossly inaccurate information,” the staff report states.
It was the latest action regarding Blain since he took his seat on Dec. 17.
On March 4, a former Poway City Councilmember and a local businessman announced they are in the process of organizing a recall effort against him.
That followed a 4-0 council vote a month earlier, on Feb. 4, to censure Blain amid allegations of vote trading, threatening recalls against colleagues and attempting to use law enforcement to silence critics. It was the first time the city has censured a councilmember in its 45 years.
In the report discussed at the March 18 meeting, officials wrote that Blain posted “a number” of the city attorney’s office’s emails containing legal advice regarding remote meeting participation on his personal website.
“Council member Blain was informed these are attorney-client privileged emails and he cannot unilaterally disclose them,” the staff report states. “In response, Council member Blain denied they are subject to the attorney-client privilege, and refused to remove them from his personal website.”
Blain wrote in a March 11 email to Assistant City Manager Wendy Kaserman, City Attorney Alisha Patterson and Councilmember Jenny Maeda that City Attorney Alan Fenstermacher and Mayor Steve Vaus were “trying to kick me off of Poway City Council as a result of my Army Reserve deployment.”
Blain said at the March 18 meeting that Maeda initiated the agenda topic to waive attorney-client privilege regarding the email communications.
Maeda said at the meeting that she read through all the related emails and “did not find any evidence to substantiate Blain’s accusations.”
“Instead I found our staff and attorney’s responses to be full of professionalism and patience as they tried their best to provide details on exactly how he could continue legally serving remotely,” Maeda said.
“Despite this discrepancy he began demanding that I speak out against this perceived injustice,” she said. “When I refused he became manipulative. When I called him out on that, he escalated to insults and threatening me. When that tactic didn’t work he blocked me.”
Maeda said Blain demonstrated the types of recurring behavior patterns that the city manager, city attorney and city clerk have been reporting for months.
“They are so busy defending themselves against personal attacks, that their ability to perform their jobs have been compromised,” Maeda said. “Therefore, I believe it is in the city’s best interest for these emails to be made public so that everyone can read and discern the truth for themselves.”
Council member Christopher Pikus said he would vote in favor of disclosing the emails as the only way the city has to defend itself — otherwise it is a one-sided discussion, he said.
Vaus said it was “troubling” that Blain was instructed to remove the attorney-client privileged emails and ignored that instruction and warning.
“He apparently doesn’t think that the rules apply to him,” Vaus said. “I plan to initiate a council item at the earliest opportunity to codify tough financial penalties for anyone who violates the sanctity of attorney-client privilege materials. Such behavior must never be tolerated.”
