I can understand the thinking behind Leslie Devaney's January 5, 2009 effort to pack the Tri-City Hospital board's meeting room with opponents of the new board majority, and I can understand that such a crowd would be noisy and unruly. I must congratulate Leslie Devaney and Ray Artiano for putting on some good theater (although the threat of jail time for board members for Brown Act violations was a bit over the top).
Unfortunately, Leslie Devaney ended this week on a much lower note.
What was she thinking when she presented a couple of phone message recordings to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis?
Tri-City board member Kathleen Sterling apparently left the messages on the phone answering machine of Jerry Salyer, her political supporter. Sterling said that a board seat might open up, and that she would be willing to help Salyer if he were interested. This wasn't a crime, it was democracy, as noted by former district attorney Paul Pfingst in a quote to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
But Ms. Devaney knows that. I'd advise her to stop directing threats of criminal prosecution to the Tri-City board.
It seems Ms. Devaney was hoping that Sterling's use of the word "personnel" in her phone message would prove that the board's actions on December 18, 2008, in which CEO Art Gonzalez and eight administrators were placed on administrative leave so that a forensic audit could be conducted, were not efforts to clear up financial questions, but efforts to discipline employees.
It does NOT appear that the board evaluated the performance of employees on December 18, but rather decided to protect the integrity of the audit by limiting access to files.
Clearly, Sterling was not trying to give Jerry a precise description of what was planned for the board meeting, which she certainly could have done if she'd wanted to. She was not speaking in legalese, she was speaking in the inexact language of everyday speech.
Devaney ranted on January 5 about how boards should be open and transparent, but at the same time she is suing me for defamation to stop all discussion of Stutz law firm on my website.
Devaney also seems to be using her insurance company connections to good effect in this case. Some people think that she and/or her partner Ray Artiano got Beta Healthcare Group to threaten to cancel the hospital's liability insurance. This threat is reminiscent of the threats to take away MiraCosta College's accreditation if reform trustees kept demanding accountability. In both instances, board trustees who wanted changes were opposed by Stutz law firm.
The relationships between public entities and insurance companies are a matter that needs to be investigated. This should be part of the forensic audit at Tri-City, and this possibility of finding kickbacks might help to explain why insurance company lawyers (such as Stutz law firm) are so worked up about this audit. The San Diego Union Tribune recently reported that federal authorities are investigating insurance kickbacks in relationship to San Diego public entities.
I don't know if it's significant, but Leslie Devaney's pal Jerry, the person who gave her the phone recording of Kathleen Sterling, apparently owns an insurance business.
Ms. Devaney might have overreached in her effort to saddle Kathleen Sterling with criminal guilt. People might not continue to focus their attention on Sterling, but rather look back at where the accusations are coming from. Why is someone who is a political supporter of Kathleen Sterling playing footsie with Leslie Devaney? What's really going on here?
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