The time is right for Hutton to go

Before we get started, let’s just say we have often not seen eye

to eye with City Atty. Gail Hutton.

It’s nothing personal, we just feel there have been many times

over the years that residents and officials here who rely on Hutton

have not gotten the best legal advice. So excuse us if we don’t join

the chorus of praise gushing out of City Hall for the longtime city

attorney, who announced she is retiring at the end of her term in

November.

Top of our list of beefs with Hutton is her decision in the

mid-1990s to refuse to disclose the names of the 25 highest-paid city

employees. The issue began when former resident Leon McKinney asked

Hutton for the names and total compensation levels of the employees.

Hutton argued the salaries were private. We took up the matter and

requested the list, noting that legal precedent clearly pointed to

the salaries being a matter of public record.

Hutton decided to fight us.

In the end, we won as predicted and in August of 1995, we

published the names and salaries and total compensation of 25

highest-paid employees in Huntington Beach, of which Hutton came in

second with a salary then of $111,000.

And oh yeah, she cost the city $10,000 by having to pay our legal

bill.

Over the years, there have been many bad decisions, foggy answers

or even refusals to comment by Hutton. Recently topping the list was

the argument by disgraced former Councilman Dave Garofalo, who was

forced to plead guilty to one felony and 15 misdemeanors regarding

votes he cast on the council, that he only was acting on the advice

of Hutton who was there every time he cast his questionable votes.

Hutton was silent on that one too, letting Garofalo take all the

heat.

There was the decision to allow the council to vote behind closed

doors on the closure of the police gun range and her crackdown on

city tattoo parlors that blew up in her face. Hutton also refused to

tell the public the names of city officials who had “spiked” their

salaries artificially in their last few years of service with the

city in order to get an inflated pension, all at the taxpayers’

expense.

The late gadfly George Arnold blamed Hutton for costing him time

in the city jail.

Hutton had ruled that Arnold’s business of selling T-shirts to

fund his council campaign was protected under political speech. The

only problem was she didn’t share that ruling with authorities who

arrested Arnold and tossed him in the slammer.

To be fair, we should point out that for the most part, Hutton

seems to be pleasing the voters just fine. Her office is the only one

in the county in which the city attorney is elected by the voters,

not appointed by a council.

Five times, ballot measures have been put to the voters asking

them to change that and make her position appointed. Five times, she

fought hard against that notion and five times she has been

victorious.

That doesn’t count the five elections, some grueling, that she has

won along the way, starting with her initial 1978 victory over Donald

Bonfa.

So while our sentiment may not be shared by everyone in Huntington

Beach, we still have to believe that new blood in the city attorney’s

office is long overdue.