Whodunit in Elk Grove City Hall?

Will the mystery of Title 23-gate be solved?

By Connie Conley

After the June 24 special Elk Grove City Council meeting to place a moratorium on the Title 23 ordinance language which directly benefits Wal Mart in their quest to put a new store in Elk Grove, and with two days to answer point blank questions as to who was the author, the mystery continues.

Vice Mayor Jim Cooper, also a veteran of over 20 years with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, applied a few investigative tactics in his questioning, and still no answers for this seasoned detective.

Cooper, along with Council member Gary Davis, both clearly frustrated, entrust city staff to know the answers. It is very simple. This language had to have come from city staff. Who inserted it? Both City Manager Laura Gill and City Attorney Susan Burns Cochran, after repeatedly being questioned by their bosses, are still responding, “I don’t know.”

At the meeting Gill, acting as a modern day Nancy Drew, essentially said the trail has gone cold. But in today’s CSI technology whereby everything can be traced through one’s computer, it could now prove to be the ultimate detective. A computer should be able untangle this plot-driven detective story to find out who the author of the Title 23 language is.

Why so much fuss? This is not an isolated incident. With this same applicant Wal Mart back in 2005 – after Elk Grove Coalition Advocating Proper Planning (EGCAPP) did a records request, which resulted in an enormous document dump – there it was, the smoking gun - an email from city staff to the applicant asking him to supply information to get around portions of the EIR application. Additionally, pertinent questions on the application were not answered. Therefore, an “accepted” application by city staff was incomplete.

Side bar: The irony of the city of Elk Grove’s records dump cannot go unmentioned. Back in 2005, then EGCAPP Chairperson Steve Detrick, and currently Elk Grove Mayor Detrick, brought in boxes of documents and dumped them on EGCAPP's co-founder Linda Ford’s kitchen table. Staff waited until just days before the Wal Mart EIR Scoping meeting before the Elk Grove Planning Commission to comply with the request; so Detrick knows full well the frustration of trying to get information from the “citizen side.” (In all fairness, this was before Jason Lindgren was Elk Grove's City Clerk.)

And here is another example of the commitment of citizens that we witnessed again during the special meeting: While my mouth dropped open with a “How the hell are we going to go through all of that in three days?” Ford responded, “I don’t care if I have to stay up for three days straight. I know this legal tactic and I will find the smoking gun.” And she did. (And note the date of this important meeting, December 15 --We were already into "The Twelve Days of Christmas." There were no "lords a-leaping" in preparing for a meeting that 4,000 residents of Elk Grove supported, entrusting EGCAPP with their voice!)

However more importantly, this is not the first time city staff has been held accountable publicly by our elected/appointed leaders and rightfully so. When EGCAPP brought forward the illusive email as evidence, during the 2005 Wal Mart EIR scoping hearing, then Elk Grove Planning Commissioner Pat Hume – currently on the city council -- took the email out of the EGCAPP binder, held it up for all to see, shaking it, clearly irritated, and asked, “Why haven’t we seen this before? And why was city staff contacting the applicant on how to fill out an EIR application that would clearly benefit them?”

And the response, you guessed it, it was the same, "I don't know." Well, if Friends of Maderia have their say, that answer will not stand with Title 23-gate.

According to Elk Grove News, in an article entitled, “Elk Grove City Council Approves 45-Day Moratorium, Questions City Staff”:

“After the meeting concluded when asked about who may have inserted the language, Elk Grove Planning Director Taro Echiburu said it could have been any member of the city staff. It could have been any of 10 people,” he said.

Equally as important, also in the Elk Grove News article, according to Echiburu, the Title 23 language was inserted after Friends of Maderia filed the lawsuit against the city of Elk Grove and Wal Mart. Why was that allowed to occur? And again, at whose direction?

Knowing his reputation, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly, who ruled against the city of Elk Grove and Wal Mart, will no doubt have a stern question or two for City Attorney Cochran on that piece of information that came to light after the June 24 meeting. As an officer of the court, Cochran's answer better not be, "I don't know."

With clues now to the identity of the author, it is time these 10 staff members are asked if they were the author, and equally as important, at whose request? Is there a “Deep Throat” among us? Let’s hope so.

But in the end, it is Gill and Cochran who are responsible for all of staff's actions, and it appears both are currently taking “The Fifth.” Embarrassing as it is, both have left the city council no choice but to conduct a thorough forensic" investigation, complete with some tried and true detective work, straight from Agatha Christie: "And Then There Were None."

Note: EGCAPP background information was also supplied and verified by EGCAPP Chairperson Linda Ford.