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LATHROP – A former Lathrop-Manteca Fire District chief is urging City Council officials to stop wasting taxpayers’ dollars and bring to an immediate resolution the Matt Browne wrongful termination case.
Retired fire chief Jerry Sims, in the latest of his appearances before the council in recent months on the former chief building official’s continuing fight for fairness on the job against the city, took the council members to task for their lack of action or desire to end the financial drain of taxpayers’ money just to feed the city’s attorneys.
“This ordeal has gone on well, well beyond an equitable system of personnel administration,” Sims told the council members during their regular meeting on Tuesday.
“It is time for us to end this matter. It is time to take this matter out of the hands of costly attorneys who have profited well, and time to discontinue the outrageous spending of taxpayer funds, and look now to the morally correct solution to resolve this matter immediately.”
In keeping with their stance from the beginning of the investigation into the Browne case which is now nearing three years, none of the four members of the council present – Sonny Dhaliwal was absent – addressed Sim’s comment.
The latest in the Browne legal saga is a nonbinding mediation between the former chief building official’s legal counsel and the legal representatives of the city. Mediation, which started in mid-September, is still continuing.
Browne clearly outlined and defended his case in a letter to the editor he sent to the Manteca Bulletin (Oct. 5, 2009). In it, Browne charged that Michael Colantuono, who represented the city in Browne’s wrongful termination hearing, carried “a great deal” of responsibility in the misinformation and “lack of factual information” about the case not only to the members of the council but also to the public and the news media. Browne said he is convinced that lack of information about all the facts surrounding his claim has rendered the council “powerless” in making a resolution to his case.
Browne also explained that he only agreed to the mediation in the hope that “the mediator might be able to help communicate to the city what I have been through.”
Browne also explained in the letter that his next move, if the mediation does not come to a mutually agreeable solution, would be to file seek a court order forcing the city council “to do what it should have done many months ago.”
Should that happen, the city and its taxpayers could be bracing for more financial hemorrhaging that could eclipse the hundreds of thousands that has been expended to date in attorneys’ fees.
Retired fire chief Jerry Sims, in the latest of his appearances before the council in recent months on the former chief building official’s continuing fight for fairness on the job against the city, took the council members to task for their lack of action or desire to end the financial drain of taxpayers’ money just to feed the city’s attorneys.
“This ordeal has gone on well, well beyond an equitable system of personnel administration,” Sims told the council members during their regular meeting on Tuesday.
“It is time for us to end this matter. It is time to take this matter out of the hands of costly attorneys who have profited well, and time to discontinue the outrageous spending of taxpayer funds, and look now to the morally correct solution to resolve this matter immediately.”
In keeping with their stance from the beginning of the investigation into the Browne case which is now nearing three years, none of the four members of the council present – Sonny Dhaliwal was absent – addressed Sim’s comment.
The latest in the Browne legal saga is a nonbinding mediation between the former chief building official’s legal counsel and the legal representatives of the city. Mediation, which started in mid-September, is still continuing.
Browne clearly outlined and defended his case in a letter to the editor he sent to the Manteca Bulletin (Oct. 5, 2009). In it, Browne charged that Michael Colantuono, who represented the city in Browne’s wrongful termination hearing, carried “a great deal” of responsibility in the misinformation and “lack of factual information” about the case not only to the members of the council but also to the public and the news media. Browne said he is convinced that lack of information about all the facts surrounding his claim has rendered the council “powerless” in making a resolution to his case.
Browne also explained that he only agreed to the mediation in the hope that “the mediator might be able to help communicate to the city what I have been through.”
Browne also explained in the letter that his next move, if the mediation does not come to a mutually agreeable solution, would be to file seek a court order forcing the city council “to do what it should have done many months ago.”
Should that happen, the city and its taxpayers could be bracing for more financial hemorrhaging that could eclipse the hundreds of thousands that has been expended to date in attorneys’ fees.
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