Wynne Furth was put in an untenable position. She was tasked with the job of investigating her masters. She did find evidence of misconduct on the part of one City Council member and she found that another City Council member was the recipient of an illegal favor from the Building Department.
I amongst others have been harshly critical of Ms. Furth. I have gone so far as to accuse Ms. Furth of sacraficing her principles in the interests of her economic well being.
I am a private citizen and Ms. Furth is a public figure. As such this kind of dialogue is fair play.
However Ms. Kathy McKeithen in her capacity as Mayor, publicly accused Ms. Furth of "ethical lapses". She did so in a public meeting without notice and without giving Ms. Furth the forum she was entitled to rebut Ms. McKeithen's allegations.
This kind of behavior by Ms. McKeithen is shocking. It is outrageous. It is irresponsible. Ms. McKeithen has crossed a line. Ms. McKeithen publicly criticized an employee in an open meeting in violation of Atherton's code of conduct and, arguably in violation of Ms. Furth's 14th ammendment right.
Can Ms. Furth really expect to obtain gainful employment if she is dumped by Atherton? Can she when anyone with a search engine can type in her name, the Town of Atherton and see that Mayor McKeithen accused her of ethical lapses?
This is precisely the reason public employees have performance evaluations in closed session, not open session, closed session.
Kathy McKeithen knows as well as anyone that what she did was improper. Ms. McKeithen was privately reprimanded for issuing the same kind of public criticism to a now retired building official.
Ms. McKeithen also said in this newspaper three years ago that I too was put in an untenable position when I was tasked with investigating the building department. This is because I too found evidence of ethical lapses on the part of my masters.
If Ms. Furth is not selected as the City Attorney, Ms. Furth will have a very good case against Atherton. Having experienced something similar quite similar, it stands to reason that I might be called to testify as a witness.
Atherton might just as well save itself some grief by cancelling the RFP for a new city attorney and just try and get along with the one it has. If not, Atherton could very well find itself in federal court defending itself in a 1983 action.
To this day I remain fond of Kathy McKeithen. I will always be grateful to her for comming to my defense when I was fired by writing a declaration in support of me.
However I strongly believe Ms. McKeithen is unfit to serve on the Atherton Town Council. She is unfit because she is her own worst enemy and by doing so, she is the enemy of those who truly want reform in Atherton.
So here's my recommendation to Atherton. Dump McKeithen and keep Furth. There will be far less litigation and the expense and misery that comes with such litigation.
