On December 21, the State Bar Board of Trustees will meet to consider the fate of embattled Chief Trial Counsel Jayne Kim.    Ms. Kim had the strong endorsement of new Executive Director Elizabeth Parker and new State Bar President David Pasternak for a second term as Chief Trial Counsel until a plurality of the union employees  in the Office of Chief Trial Counsel (OCTC) voted no confidence in Ms. Kim in an unprecedented plebiscite.    On November 20, two senior discipline prosecutors and union officers, Robin Brune and Erin Joyce, laid out the case against the Chief.

The allegations against the Chief Trial Counsel may seem opaque to those who have not spent time in the State Bar bubble.  They can be boiled down to four essential charges.  Those charges and commentary follow.  Of course,  while the Union has made its case against Jayne Kim public, she doesn’t have the same opportunity, so the case against her can only be evaluated by the Board of Trustees.   Certain facts on the ground cannot be denied, however.   The Office of Chief Trial Counsel is the biggest part of the State Bar’s operations and many if not most of the employees in that shop are upset enough to go public with their unhappiness.   This is all occurring while the State Bar is undergoing great scrutiny by the Legislature.

1.  The Chief Trial Counsel’s explanation for stipulations kicked back by the Supreme Court  is disingenuous;  she is seeking to blame staff and prior managers for levels of discipline that were set through her active direction.

In June 2011, former Executive Director Joseph Dunn forced out Chief Trial Counsel Jim Towery and later fired four of the five senior managers in OCTC.    Mr. Dunn then announced the goal of eliminating the OCTC  investigation backlog by the end of the year and that Jayne Kim, a former OCTC manager who had left the office in 2009 to work in the US Attorney’s office, would be appointed as interim Chief Trial Counsel.   It was announced in February 2012 that the backlog had been eliminated.  “Interim” was removed from the Chief Trial Counsel’s title and she was later confirmed by the California Senate.

In June 2012, the California Supreme Court announced that it was returning 24 stipulated dispositions to the State Bar Court for further consideration “in light of applicable discipline standards.  This had never happened before.  These were cases where the facts, conclusions of law and level of discipline had been agreed to by OCTC and the respondent attorney, and then approved by the State Bar Court. The Chief Trial Counsel then decided, after reviewing stipulations pending with the Supreme Court, to request the return of another 24.

The State Auditor’s report issued in June 2015 criticized the backlog reduction project as potentially placing the public at risk.   The report stated:

According to the chief trial counsel, a key factor that enabled the
State Bar to decrease its backlog in 2011 was its insufficient quality
control at a time when staff were trying very hard to meet what she
believed to be an arguably unrealistic goal. Specifically, when the
chief trial counsel assumed office in October 2011, she learned that
the State Bar did not require review by management, supervisors,
or peers before filing or settling cases.  She also described several
operational changes that the State Bar used to reduce the backlog
related to shifting staffing resources, which we discuss later in
this chapter.  Since assuming office, the chief trial counsel has taken steps
to monitor the backlog and to ensure quality control over
case processing. Specifically, she noted that the management
of the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel monitors the backlog
weekly and submits monthly reports to the Board of Trustees
(board). Furthermore, in late 2011 she began providing training
and development programs for State Bar staff, and in 2012 she
implemented a policy requiring managerial review of all decisions
on cases, including settlements. 

The Union alleges that Ms. Kim sought to distance herself from the backlog reduction project by suggesting that State Bar employees or the prior managers were responsible for the levels of discipline that the State Auditors report later concluded “may” have put the public at risk.   To the contrary, the Union says, the Chief was actively managing staff, with the only mandate being backlog reduction.  It is unknown whether the language from the Auditors report is the only basis for this allegation.  The impression Jayne Kim gave the Auditors is much different than the “there’s a new sheriff in town”  the State Bar was promoting at the time.  The Chief’s  statement to the auditor’s  that she believed  zero backlog was “arguably unrealistic” is impossible to square with her statement to the California Bar Journal in August 2011: “She was emphatic…that a zero backlog could be achieved. ”  Bus. & Prof. Code section 6079.5 provides the Chief Trial Counsel reports directly to the  Regulation and Discipline Committee of the  Board of Trustees and does not report to the Executive Director.   Did Jayne Kim communicate her opinion that the zero backlog  goal was unrealistic to RAD?  Apparently not, certainly not publicly.  Didn’t  she have a duty to?  The only conclusion possible is that Senator Joe Dunn was setting discipline policy for OCTC at the time, despite the language of section 6079.5.  Did she tell Senator Dunn that backlog reduction was arguably impossible?

From the viewpoint of defense counsel ,  OCTC was clearly settling cases in late 2011 for levels of discipline that it would not be settling for absent the zero backlog goal.   I recall Deputy Trial Counsel telling me in one case in late December that I better take the offer now because the price would go up after the first of the year.   This was done at management direction and was not the result of “poor quality control”  although no one apparently gave thought to the possibility that the Supreme Court might have a problem with some dispositions.   The truth is that the backlog has always been tied to settlement policy.  The shutdown of 1998 generated  a mountain of cases.  When we returned to work in 1999, the Early Neutral Evaluation Conference was instituted under the leadership of the special master Justice Lui  and OCTC’s policy was to agree with the State Bar Court’s judge’s evaluation in every case.   Former Chief Trial Counsel Mike Nisperos wanted settlement rates in State Bar Court to mirror civil court and the backlog fell.  Former Chief Trial Counsel  Scott Drexel perceived the Silverton case as direction for tougher discipline from the Supreme Court,  toughened settlement policy and backlog increased.

2.  The Chief Trial Counsel’s faulty interpretation of the Supreme Court’s remand has led to over-centralized management.  This has led to poor charging decisions, an overly harsh settlement policy, unnecessary trials and a number of cases lost at trial. 

This is consistent with the experience of many discipline defense counsel.  After the Supreme Court remand of the stipulated decisions, it became very difficult to settle cases.   The terse language of the remand order reconsideration in line with “applicable discipline standards” did not provide much guidance.  Most remanded cases did result in increased discipline;  OCTC and the State Bar Court both interpreted the remand as a direction for harsher discipline, as well as a better explanation for how the recommendation was reached.   Discipline charging and settlement decisions now  go through several levels of review;  Deputy Trial Counsel constantly remind us that they have no discretion even on minor issues;  even grammatical changes in written stipulations must be approved by management.

This is not new.  Centralization of decision-making began in the Drexel administration, where Jayne Kim served as an Assistant Chief Trial Counsel.   But it reached new levels after the 2012 Supreme Court action, along with a settlement policy that was clearly calculated to settle no case for a level of discipline that might later be questioned.  Many trials ensued, some that OCTC “lost” in the sense that they did not get the levels of discipline that they asked for.  But that wasn’t the point;  if political heat was to be had for a particular decision, it would be directed to the State Bar Court, not the Office of Chief Trial Counsel.   This, also, is not a new sentiment;  I heard it expressed in OCTC early in my career when that office was battling the first iteration of the full-time State Bar Court, headed by Lise Pearlman.

Statistics on cases “lost” at trial are not readily available.  Discipline defense counsel have urged the RAD Committee in the past to keep statistics on levels of discipline in support of our allegation of routine overcharging.  Those statistics, undoubtedly kept by someone, are not published.  Much anecdotal evidence supports the allegation that the State Bar Court has often recommended less discipline  than asked for by OCTC in recent years, including  an increasing number of cases where respondents are completely exonerated, something that used to be a rare event.

3.  The Chief Trial Counsel has saddled OCTC investigators  with an 90 day deadline to complete investigations and unreasonably large caseloads, up to 50 cases per investigator when 20 is optimal.  Performance improvement plans are  used when these time frames are not met.  The emphasis is on meeting deadlines, not quality investigation.

The relationship between OCTC and its corps of professional investigators has always been problematical.  In the 1980’s, the Kroker Commission recommended the creation of a separate Office of Investigations, with its own Director of Investigations, in part to address the lack of a career path for investigators at the State Bar.   Morale has always been a problem as investigators have perceived themselves as second class citizens in an organization run by attorneys.  The separate Office of Investigation was abolished  after the Alarcon Commission in the mid-1990’s found it be a waste and investigators were integrated into the Office of Trials, which became the Office of Chief Trial Counsel.   Many different schemes of organization have sought to fully integrate the investigation function and the prosecutorial function without full success..  Most recently, the director of investigation position was resurrected within OCTC and filled until recently by whistleblower John Noonan.  That position has now been eliminated and with it, Mr. Noonan’s employment after close to thirty years of State Bar service.

The allegation that the investigation process is more concerned with deadlines than quality is one that has been made by discipline defense counsel for a long time.  Large caseloads are not new either, although the large numbers of complaints received during the Loan Mod Wars were new.  Those numbers have now returned to something that could be called normal, roughly 2008 levels  (see 2014 Annual Discipline Report, at page 16.)

The Union is surely correct that a mandate that investigations be completed within 90 days is difficult to achieve in many cases, and often due to factors beyond the investigator’s control.  The use of Performance Improvement Plans (PIP) to enforce these deadlines is a source of special irritation; PIPs are the first step toward discipline.

4.  The Chief Trial Counsel has supplied inaccurate information to RAD,  including removing State Bar Investigations from metrics supplied to RAD in September 2013, misrepresenting the existence of an investigator mentoring program , referring to a “phantom” law enforcement liasion program that did not exist and representing that OCTC was pursuing immigration fraud by non-attorneys when it has not.

State Bar Investigations (SBI) are investigations opened by the Office of Chief Trial Counsel on its own initiative, usually without a complaint from anyone. The allegation that the Chief Trial Counsel manipulated backlog numbers to omit SBIs was part of Senator Dunn’s whistleblower complaint.  The balance of the allegations are new and this reporter has no insight into them beyond the obvious:  the Union is attempting to paint a portrait of an untrustworthy executive in charge of the State Bar’s biggest operation.

Personality is an issue here.    I was Jayne Kim’s first manager when she came to the State Bar after a brief career in the public defender’s office.   There is no doubt that she is very smart, very hard-working and very ambitious.  There is also no doubt that she has  the kind of hard-driving personality that can rub many people the wrong way.   You might be right if you argued, as some have to me, that sometimes a ramrod is needed, that complacency must be shaken up.  But where past Chief Trial Counsel have inspired loyalty, the current Chief Trial Counsel has inspired hatred.  There are many circumstances underlying this phenomenon but there it is.  Senator Joe Dunn hovers like a ghost over the whole affair;  indeed, the Union begins its argument by invoking the ongoing litigation over Dunn’s firing and asking whether it would be better just to put all this behind us?   For good or for ill, Jayne Kim and Joe Dunn are inextricably linked, first, due to her perceived status as his protegé, and second, over their conflict and the still unclear role that it played in Senator Dunn’s firing.

The new senior executive team, new director Elizabeth Parker, and the new Board of Trustees were undoubtedly hoping that they would not have to go through the difficult task of choosing a new Chief Trial Counsel.  But how does the State Bar go forward with Jayne Kim as Chief Trial Counsel with so much apparent hostility directed from the people who have to actually do the work?  If it chooses to, the much heralded legerdemain of the new senior management team will be put to the test.

Erin Joyce and Robin Brune, veteran prosecutors in the Office of Chief Trial Counsel, lay out the case against  Chief Trial Counsel Jayne Kim:

Last week, another veteran State Bar employee, investigator John Noonen, was fired.   Noonen had filed a “whistleblower” complaint against the Chief Trial Counsel.  Noonen is represented by Mark Geragos, who also represents Senator Joseph Dunn, whose wrongful termination lawsuit is headed to arbitration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcFKfjJlCk

The direction from the top seemed pretty clear:

The second Commission should also be guided in its task by the principle that the [California Rules of Professional Conduct’s} historical purpose is to regulate the professional conduct of members of the bar, and that as such, the proposed rules should remain a set of minimum disciplinary standards. While the second Commission may be guided by and refer to the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct when appropriate, it should avoid incorporating the purely aspirational or ethical considerations that are present in the Model Rules and Comments.

Not everyone got the memo.  Consider this language:

In the management and operation of a law practice and in order to understand and properly protect and promote the public interest, members must engage in and promote a diverse and inclusive legal profession and practice. A diverse, inclusive and nondiscriminatory legal profession can be created and maintained through community engagement, strategic partnerships, education on access, fairness and the elimination of bias and by supporting a practice that reflects and is representative of the public and client community to be served.

This language is proposed as an addition to a new version of Rule of Professional Conduct 2-400,  Prohibited Discrimination in Law Practice Management and Operation,  to be re-numbered as new rule 8.4.1(c).   The proposed language comes from the State Bar’s  Council on Access & Fairness (COAF), a State Bar organ charged with “implementing the State Bar goals and strategies for increasing diversity in the legal profession and the elimination of bias in the practice of law.”  COAF also proposed in a letter to RRC2 dated October 26, 2015, that “existing Rule 2-400 be updated to reflect current employment protections under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (Gov. Code, § 12900 et seq.) (FEHA) and public accommodations protections under the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Unruh Act) (Civ. Code, § 51 et seq.).”

Rule 2-400 is an interesting rule.  No lawyer has ever been disciplined for violating it.  It was enacted at the direction of the Legislature.  While it was duly approved by the California Supreme Court in 1994, the drafters drafted it is such a way as to make it very unlikely that anyone would ever be subject to discipline for violating it.  Rule 2-400 currently provides:

No disciplinary investigation or proceeding may be initiated by the State Bar against a member under this rule unless and until a tribunal of competent jurisdiction, other than a disciplinary tribunal, shall have first adjudicated a complaint of alleged discrimination and found that unlawful conduct occurred. Upon such adjudication, the tribunal finding or verdict shall then be admissible evidence of the occurrence or non-occurrence of the alleged discrimination in any disciplinary proceeding initiated under this rule.

At its November 13 meeting the Second Commission for the Revision of the Rules of Professional Conduct (RRC2) there was as strong consensus  to remove this language, on the theory that this language is preventing enforcement of the rule.  This would open the door to discipline proceedings based on complaint without a prior civil adjudication.   There was apparently no discussion of whether this rule is even needed.

Discrimination is a social evil that has been addressed by the civil law through statutory weapons like  FEHA and Unruh Act, just as other social evils have been.  Rules of Professional Conduct are not designed to address social evils;  they are yardsticks by which we measure the fitness of lawyers to practice.  Larding them up with a mission not related to that core function makes little sense.   Nonethless, a few states have added disciplinary rules that address discrimination in employment or use of discriminatory language in advocacy,  None have gone where the proposed new  2-400(b)(2) goes:

(b) In the management or operation of a law firm, a lawyer shall not unlawfully discriminate or knowingly permit unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, religion, age, or disability in:…(2) accepting or terminating representation of any client.

It is unknown whether this will deter discrimination by lawyers.  What is certain is that it will create a whole new class of potential disciplinary culpabability that will require intense litigation.   I have represented lawyers who represent people in employment discrimination claims.  It is a volatile clientele  where issues regarding mental health are often involved.   Many lawyers and especially these lawyers  will now face the possibility of a State Bar complaint from the mentally ill ex-employee whose case they rejected as untenable or who became so difficult to work with that the lawyer withdrew.   Discrimination  is also a document heavy and witness heavy practice because proving discrimination is not easy and must often be done by creating a mosaic of many bits of evidence that show the discriminatory animus.  Proving it by the required burden of clear and convincing evidence will almost always be extremely time consuming and in most cases, probably impossible.

The State Bar Court, in a rare communication to RRC2, points out that the recently streamlined State Bar Court process, streamlined to eliminate both the formal rules of evidence and most discovery as a matter of right, is singularly unsuited to litigating discrmination claims which it might be  called upon to do if the condition preedent of a civil finding is eliminated.

By contrast, the Chief Trial Counsel, in a display of the  same “can-do” attitude that informed the now infamous backlog reduction project, assures RRC2 that OCTC is up to the task of enforcing whatever rules you want them to enforce.  They might want to look at this video when evaluating that claim:

Adopting the proposed Rule 2-400(B)(2) will not address the social evil of discrimination and will result in many employment lawyers having to respond to frivolous discrimination complaints made to the State Bar,  complaints that will mosly be unprosecutable.   It will create new work for already overworked attorneys and investigators at the State Bar.  And new work for discipline defense counsel;  the evil gremlin inside me who guards the fisc is grinning as I write.

No one, outside of a single public commentator, is asking why we need this Rule.   Perhaps the theory is that the mere existence of the Rule will serve as deterrant to an attorney who is contemplating committing discriminatory conduct.   Given the relatively low level of awareness regarding existing Rule 2-400, this seems firmly rooted in fantasy but the deterrance fantasy has been invoked before, most recently in the revision of the Standards for Attorney Sanctions for Professional  Misconduct (SASPM), where it floated to argue for increased  levels discipline for any and all misconduct.   But the real world effect may be called “civil litigation by other means.”   Damages as such are not available to the complainant in State Bar Court but the opportunity to inflict damage on the respondent lawyer, at little or no cost to the complainant,  may be tempting.  More work for the discipline system, work that will likely come to nought.

COAF’s proposed language is apparently still awaiting consideration.  But other opportunities to promote pure aspiration are on the docket.  At its January 2016 meeting,  RRC2 will consider a California version of ABA Model Rule 6.1, which provides that  “every lawyer has a professional responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay.  A lawyer should aspire to render at least (50) hours of pro bono publico legal services per year.”

Why will it spend its time doing that in light of the Supreme Court’s explicit direction?  Because, despite what the Supreme Court says, the Rules of Professional Conduct are viewed by many as a vehicle for enforcing moral obligations, as opposed to “merely”  ethical ones.

And perhaps  because rule making inevitably becomes an exercise in sausage making in  Bismarckian sense.   The later impulse to accomodate interests not directly related to the mission of the discipline system proved to be the undoing of the fruit of RRC1.  Will it undo the work of RRC2?

The continuing soap opera (or “telenovela” in the words of one discipline defense counsel of long experience) that is the State Bar of California delivered a surprising sequel this last Monday with filing of a 40 page whistleblower complaint by a veteran State Bar investigator and acting manager of investigations against Chief Trial Counsel Jayne Kim.  It was leaked by to the Los Angeles Daily Journal just a few days after a plurality of employees in the Office of Chief Trial Counsel voted “no confidence”  in Ms. Kim.  The  complaint alleges that State Bar complaints against new State Bar President David Pasternak were improperly closed by the Office of Chief Trial Counsel instead of being assigned to outside counsel.   The whistleblower promises further revelations.-

 

Poor labor-management relations are not new at the State Bar; the attorney unit in the Office of Chief Trial Counsel went on strike in 1986.  But nothing has ever occurred like this outright insurrection.  To paraphrase another State Bar discipline defense counsel of long experience,  just when you think it can’t get any weirder,  it gets weirder.

There are parallels with the State Bar’s situation in 1986.   The labor dispute that year was resolved after SEIU appealed to its allies in Sacramento.  At the same time,  the State Bar was fighting in Sacramento to maintain its existence and keep the disciipline function.   The State Bar survived with massive reform of the discipline system under the guidance of Prof. Fellmeth.

At this point speculation about what the next shoe to drop will be is a waste of energy.  We can only be sure that there will be a next shoe.  After a few decades of close observation,  State Bar fatigue starts to set in.  Marx said history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce.   This telenovela reached the second phase  some time ago.   But the real world tragedy continues.:  the important mission of the professional discipline prosecutors  is continually impeded by the politics and mismanagement of the State Bar.

 

So we wait for the next episode with an appropriate sense of dread on the eve of dia de muertos.    Manténganse al tanto!

This week is a mixed bag for that peculiar institution, The State Bar of California.

Good news:  Dennis Mangers, public member of the Board of Trustees announced that he is going to the serve out the remaining year of his second term on the Board.  Mr. Mangers had threatened to resign after a dust-up with incoming President David Pasternak over Mr. Pasternak’s appointments to Board committees, including the powerful Board Executive Committee.  He has apparently concluded that he can be a greater force for change by staying on the Board.    The Governance reform process created by SB 163 in 2010, is ongoing;  the Governance in the Public Interest Task Force (GITPITF), is charged with submitting a report by March 2017 detailing “its recommendations for enhancing the protection of the public and ensuring that protection of the public is the highest priority in the licensing, regulation, and discipline of attorneys.”  GITPITF met recently and heard a spirited presentation from  Ed Howard from the Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL), who argued that the present Board configuration, where lawyers hold 13 out of 19 seats, is against the “state of nature.”  CPIL’s views carry some weight;  its director Robert Fellmeth designed the current discipline system in his capacity as the Legislature’s first Discipline Monitor almost thirty years ago.

These events occur in the wake of the State  Auditor’s report released in June that was highly critical of the State Bar, in part because of the backlog reduction project that sprang from Senator Dunn’s fertile brain in July 2011, after he  effectively decapitated the Office of Chief Trial Counsel.  The auditor concluded that the push to reduce the backlog “may” have put the public at risk by settling cases for more lenient discipline than merited.   At the hearing on the recently signed fee bill,  Assembly Judiciary members were not happy.  While the fee bill was amended to add transparency measures, compliance the Bagley-Keene open meeting law and the California Public Records Act, the legislators made it clear that they might be open to more sweeping measures in next year’s fee bill.  As we move on,  this seems more and more likely…

Bad news:  the unionized work force in the Office of Chief Trial Counsel (OCTC) voted “no confidence” in current Chief Trial Counsel Jayne Kim.   OCTC staff have complained of large caseloads since Ms.  Kim was appointed interim Chief Trial Counsel in July 2011,  But a whistleblower complaint  goes much farther, accusing the Chief Trial Counsel of “disregard of her responsibilities, inadequate performance and dishonesty” citing her alleged attempt to blame a staff member for the misrepresentation of backlog numbers to the Board Regulation and Discipline Committee, and much, much more.   While the State Bar’s new executive team is bullish on the Chief Trial Counsel, the tone of this unprecedented attack shows  loathing on a scale not previously seen by your observer.  Out of 200 employees eligible to vote,   87 voted “no confidence” in Jayne Kim;  27 voted against the measure;  76 chose not to vote at all.

Labor strife is not new at the State Bar.  In 1986,  OCTC attorneys went on strike.  At the same time, the State Bar was fighting for its existence in the wake of exposes published in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Both events followed a period of time when the Board of Governors kept bar dues low and underfunded the discipline system to the point of breakdown.   Somewhere in the vault of documents leftover from my own days as a union activist is a memorandum from 1983 where discipline prosecutors complain about having to use old scraps of paper to take notes because there isn’t enough money to buy legal pads.  The issue of inadequate resources was raised in the State Auditor’s report and it recommended a workforce study which will be done.   No close observer of OCTC can doubt that staff has worked its collective ass off for the last four years.

Undertaking an unprecendented backlog reduction after an unprecedented firing of your entire senior staff while you are being deluged with an unprecedented surge of complaints was perhaps not the best management decision.  That is three “unprecedenteds” in the same sentence and it cannot be good.

But when your pick a politician as your manager based on that person’s imagined political clout, maybe something like this is inevitable.   A prophet is, of course, without honor in his own country (“Meet the New Boss“)  but the political context surrounds all of this.   Yes, the State Bar has an impressive management team in place.  But it has been making the same mistakes over and over again for the last forty years.  This is deeper than personnel;  it about a culture than can only fixed  by major structural surgery,  a paradigm shift in today’s nomenclature.

 

Update:    The Board of Trustees has voted to approve President Pasternak’s appointments to Board Committees on a divided vote.

The second item on the agenda is the appointment of Board liasions to various State Bar organs, also a perogative of the President (with Board approval, of course.)    Board member Joanna Mendoza has moved to delay voting on the appointments;  she complains that she nothing to do.   That motion has just been defeated on an 8-5 vote.  Trustee Krinsky moves to approve President Pasternak’s appointments with changes including appointing Mendoza to some assignments.  That motion has just been approved.   Mr. Pasternak assures the Board that he has listened to all members comments and that he has to power to change those appointments.

 

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The new Board of Trustees of the State Bar of California held its first meeting of the new Board year on October 11, 2015 at the State Bar Annual Meeting, just down the road from the home of Mickey Mouse.  Almost immediately, one very first agenda item, the Board ran into a buzzsaw of controversy .  Some things don’t change.

The issue is appointments to chair Board Committees, a perogative of the State Bar President.   Some Board members accused incoming President David Pasternak of stacking appointments to Board Committees in favor of Board members who voted for his election against competing candidate Heather Rosing, including appointments to the powerful Board Executive Committee.   That election was close, so close that outgoing  President Craig Holden cast the tiebreaking vote that elected Mr.  Pasternak.  Six of his eight proposed appointments to the Ex Comm have gone went to lawyers who voted for his election.  His propsed appointments of all seven Board subcommittees are to Trustees who voted

Bad feelings still exist.   Part of the controversy is the impact of the recently signed fee bill that imposes the requirement of compliance with the Bagley Keene open meeting acts.   Public member Dennis Mangers accused  Mr. Pasternak of using Bagley Keene to avoid inclusion.   He just threatened to resign and the tone of meeting is turning very ugly.

Updates to follow.