tool name

Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009

Atwater has spent $55,000 on summer Frago fiasco -- so far

Money has been paid to lawyers as part of racist e-mails fallout during summer.

ATWATER -- The city of Atwater paid nearly $60,000 in legal fees this past summer to deal with the fallout following the publication of a series of racist e-mails sent by Councilman Gary Frago in late 2008 and early 2009.

The city paid its law firm, Meyers Nave, $55,976 to deal with the legal implications of Frago's e-mails during the last two weeks of July and all of August, according to the law firm. In all, the firm chalked up 228 hours of legal work dealing with the aftermath of Frago's e-mails, said Jose Sanchez, an attorney with Meyers Nave.

That work included going over public information requests, meeting with the City Council and staff, and preparing for and participating in public meetings, among other things.

For some City Council members, that legal bill was a reminder of how much Frago's e-mails have cost the city.

"This is an outrageous cost," said City Councilman Nelson Crabb, who initially requested a price tag on legal fees. "This is basically a police officer-and-a-half that we are dealing with and we are not done yet."

Mayor Joan Faul simply said, "It was very costly."

Indeed, the legal bill for September, for instance, has yet to come in.

In addition, the city has not yet picked a company to administer a series of sensitivity classes the council and city staff are scheduled to take, so the total cost is unknown.

And that's not all.

City Manager Greg Wellman hired an attorney to conduct an internal investigation into whether or not any of Frago's e-mails were sent to any staff members. That bill has not come in either, said Wellman.

Aside from the monetary costs, city staff spent roughly 150 to 200 hours dealing with issues involving Frago's e-mails, estimated Assistant City Manager Stan Feathers. "Most of this does not represent an additional cost to the city. What it represents is a loss of time that we would have spent on other projects," he said. But, he added, any work put aside because of Frago was done after hours.

While Councilman Crabb thinks the costs of the affair have been too much, that is just one concern when it comes to legal matters and Frago. Crabb wonders why the city is expending so much effort to protect itself. If he was arrested for drunk driving, Crabb said, the city would not pay for his lawyers. And they wouldn't be forced to undergo classes on drunk driving, he added.

Faul explained that the city had to take the action it did to protect itself from litigation.

A Sun-Star story on July 17 revealed that Frago sent at least seven racist e-mails to city and county officials from October 2008 to February 2009. The e-mails denigrated President Obama, the first lady and black people in general.

Subsequently, the City Council released even more of Frago's derogatory e-mails and convened two large public meetings on the issue where Frago apologized and the city formally reprimanded him in a letter.

While Frago has apologized, at first he said he didn't regret sending the e-mails.

"I don't see where there's a story, I'm not the only one that does it," he told the Sun-Star in July. "I didn't originate them, they came to me, and I just passed them on."

Frago could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Reporter Jonah Owen Lamb can be reached at (209) 385-2484 or jlamb@mercedsun-star.com.