The Firing of El Segundo City Manager Doug Willmore – Part 1

By Michael D. Robbins
Former El Segundo City Councilman
Founder and Director, Public Safety Project

March 18, 2012

This is Part 1 of a three-part series. This first part covers the controversy Doug Willmore created and the facts and circumstances surrounding his firing. The second part covers the old 1994 legal settlement agreement to the MRC-Chevron-City of El Segundo tax dispute. The third part covers revelations from newly released documents and Doug Willmore emails in response to a public records request, and the exploitation of the KCET propaganda video for political campaign purposes, as it was intended by the KCET producers.

This three-part series could have just as well been called “BIG MEDIA SMALL INTEGRITY”, in response to KCET SoCal Connected producer Karen Foshay’s “SMALL TOWN BIG OIL” propaganda hatchet-job attack against Chevron, City Councilman Carl Jacobson, and the entire city of El Segundo. This series exposes Foshay’s TV show for the propaganda that it is, in addition to explaining the facts and circumstances surrounding the firing of Doug Willmore.

There has been much controversy surrounding the firing of El Segundo City Manager Doug Willmore at the special meeting of the El Segundo City Council on February 9, 2012. This controversy has been created by Doug Willmore himself, and by anti-business news organizations he enlisted to smear Chevron, Councilman Carl Jacobson, and the entire city of El Segundo. Carl Jacobson is the only City Council member who voted to fire Doug Willmore and who is running for reelection. Councilman Don Brann is not running for reelection, and Councilwoman Suzanne Fuentes is not up for reelection for another two years.

It is clear that Willmore is trying to get Jacobson unelected, possibly out of revenge, but more likely for financial gain at taxpayer expense. Willmore has filed a claim against the City, the legally required precursor to a lawsuit. Willmore did not turn in his signed release form agreeing not to sue the City within the time limit specified in his contract. Thus, Willmore has walked away from his six-month severance pay of more than $100,000.

Doug Willmore’s 3-page claim against the city of El Segundo, his former employer, as the precursor to a lawsuit.

After reading Willmore’s claim, and knowing much about the surrounding facts, it is clear that Willmore is trying to shakedown our city and its taxpayers for multiple millions of dollars. By pursuing frivolous litigation against the City, his past employer, in such a high-profile manner in broadcast and print news media, it appears that Willmore does not plan to get another job nor to work another day in his life. Willmore is alleging retaliatory firing and age discrimination, among other things. He is even demanding that the City pay for his psychiatric treatment, even if it is for a pre-existing condition.

Willmore has two allies and supporters on the City Council – Mayor Eric Busch and Mayor Pro Tem Bill Fisher. Busch’s term expires with the coming April 10 election, and he is not running for re-election. This will leave Willmore with only one ally and supporter on City Council, but he needs three to have a majority that will vote to give him a large “settlement” payout as a “gift of public funds” or “hush money”. Willmore must know plenty about Busch’s dealings with the city’s firefighter and police unions.

The safety unions gave Mayor Busch and Mayor Pro Tem Fisher thousands of dollars in campaign support, and received millions of dollars per year in excess and unsustainable compensation and pensions. Where else can someone make a thousand-to-one return on their “investment”? This might be viewed as a form of laundering of public funds into campaign money in a way that is incredibly efficient for the unions and incredibly inefficient for the taxpayers.

KCET SoCal Connected producer Karen Foshay knowingly and intentionally produced a propaganda hatchet-job show attacking Chevron (“BIG OIL”), Councilman Carl Jacobson, and the city of El Segundo (“SMALL TOWN”).

Despite all the fancy artwork and video production techniques, that does not guarantee that anything in Foshay’s KCET TV show is true.

KCET SoCal Connected introduction theme video frame capture.

KCET SoCal Connected “SMALL TOWN BIG OIL” show introduction video frame capture.

KCET SoCal Connected “SMALL TOWN BIG OIL” show introduction video frame capture listing producers Karen Foshay and Lata Pandya, and editor Alberto Arce, who participated in the KCET propaganda hatchet job.

KCET SoCal Connected producer Karen Foshay used close-in, wide-angle camera shots to make Carl Jacobson’s face look distorted and peculiar, while she used long-distance telephoto studio camera shots to make Doug Willmore look good. These are standard tricks of the trade used in news media propaganda hatchet-job interviews.

Karen Foshay used close-in, wide-angle camera shots of Carl Jacobson to make his face look distorted and peculiar. Frame capture from KCET SoCal Connected video.

Karen Foshay used long-distance telephoto studio camera shots to make Doug Willmore look good. Frame capture from KCET SoCal Connected video.

I tried to take my own video of KCET SoCal Connected producer Karen Foshay’s interviews in public areas in City Hall, but she abruptly stopped the interviews until I stopped making my own recording.

Apparently, Foshay did not want there to be an independent recording, so she and her fellow KCET propaganda journalists could change the questions during the voice-over editing process to make the answers appear to be saying something different, and could take quotes out of context to distort them.

Karen Foshay abruptly stopped interviewing El Segundo Mayor Pro Tem Bill Fisher in the City Council chamber when she realized I was making my own independent video recording. Photo copyright © 2012 by Michael D. Robbins.

There are many contradictions in the KCET and L.A. Times propaganda pieces

For example, Jeff Gottlieb’s January 28 L.A. Times article claimed Willmore said he found the threatening note on his car windshield outside City Hall, but Karen Foshay’s KCET SoCal Connected TV show has Willmore on video claiming he found the threatening note on his car outside his residence in another city.

The January 28, 2012 L.A. Times article by Jeff Gottlieb, “El Segundo, Chevron at odds over oil company’s taxes”, states:

Doug Willmore wasn’t on the job long as El Segundo’s city manager before discovering just how deep the town’s loyalty runs to the oil giant that put it on the map.

After the city began discussing a big tax increase for the Chevron oil refinery a few months ago, he walked out of City Hall to find a note on the windshield of his car.

“This is a Chevron town and we owe our existence to them and should be grateful. Get that through your head,” it read.

The note ended: “Beat it!!!!!!!”

The KCET SoCal Connected show transcript states:

Gonzales: But before you dismiss this as small-town paranoia, listen to what happened to Doug just after that December city council meeting.

Willmore: I was actually outside my, my home. I walked underneath into the garage it had parking, underground parking and there was a note on my car that basically said, “This is a Chevron town. You don’t’ understand. Get out of here.” But here was the chilling thing – it said, “It’s a good thing your children don’t go to school here because if they did, they wouldn’t make it through the day.” Who does that?”

Gonzales: Police never found out. But Chevron denies any involvement and called the note reprehensible.

The El Segundo police department should investigate Doug Willmore for filing a false police report if he actually filed one.

As another example, KCET and the L.A. Times claimed or implied that Carl Jacobson was somehow crooked because he signed the legal settlement agreement. But as news professionals, Karen Foshay and Jeff Gottlieb knew very well that you need a majority vote to approve anything, and that Jacobson was required to sign the agreement even if he had voted against it, because he was the mayor. The Council vote approving the settlement was unanimous, and that vote took place in a public open session City Council meeting.

The KCET SoCal Connected show transcript states:

Gonzales: But you signed off on the deal?

Jacobson: Yes.

The March 1, 2012 L.A. Times article by Jeff Gottlieb, “El Segundo ignores millions in potential taxes from Chevron, records show”, states:

“Carl Jacobson, who signed the agreement as mayor in 1994 and remains on the City Council, declined to comment.”

Jeff Gottlieb made the suggestion in his L.A. Times news article that Carl Jacobson, who is running for re-election, should be voted out of office, by his wording, “and remains on the City Council”. And even that statement is inaccurate, because Jacobson has not served continuously on the City Council since 1994. He did not run for reelection in one election cycle due to family reasons.

Also, Gottlieb admitted to me, upon my questioning when he called to interview me, that he did not even bother to watch the all-important December 20, 2012 El Segundo City Council meeting, even though it was readily available for free video streaming or download over the internet from the official city web site, ElSegundo.org. It is both lazy and irresponsible for a professional L.A. Times journalist to write a news story without even watching the most important official meeting on the subject, where arguments were presented for and against the $10 million per year Chevron tax hike promoted by City Manager Willmore at Mayor Busch’s request. Unless, of course, you have a preconceived bias and agenda, and the facts don’t matter.

In the KCET video, we have no idea what question Carl Jacobson was actually asked, to which he responded “Yes”, because of the voice-over editing process that is standard operating procedure for KCET and most other broadcast news organizations. With voice-over editing, one set of questions is asked and recorded during the interview, and the same or a different set of questions is later asked and recorded in the studio, and edited in to the video to replace the original questions.

The interview subject (or victim) is not present when the second set of questions is asked and recorded, and has no control to ensure that the same questions are asked and recorded the second time. Producer Karen Foshay asked the original set of questions in the interviews at El Segundo City Hall, but Vince Gonzales asked the replacement set of questions. That is why you never see the person asking the questions, either Foshay the first time or Gonzales the second time, in the video. That explains why Foshay abruptly stopped the interviews when I started to make my own independent video recording.

Note that in some voice-overs, the celebrity anchor man or woman is shown asking the second set of questions, but you will never see the person asking the questions in the same video frame as the person being interviewed. When the person asking the questions is not in the same frame as the interview subject, it opens up additional opportunity for changing the questions and attaching them to the original answers during editing to change the meaning of the answers.

As yet another and perhaps the most significant example, Willmore has claimed on the KCET SoCal Connected TV show, produced by Karen Foshay, and in an L.A. Times article by Jeff Gottlieb, that the timing and circumstances of his firing were “suspicious”. Foshay and Gottlieb built whole stories around Willmore’s claims, completely ignoring the facts and information they had received that contradicted Willmore’s claims and their own anti-business bias and agenda. They interviewed me because I was on the City Council at the time of the legal settlement to the MRC-Chevron-City tax dispute, and I provided them with plenty of facts and information, both verbally and by email to make sure they had the correct information.

And then unsolicited mass-distribution emails were sent out to El Segundo voters urging them to watch the KCET show, which like Gottlieb’s article, was a total propaganda hatchet job attacking Chevron and Councilman Carl Jacobson. The emails also said disgusting falsehoods about Carl Jacobson, and urged voters to vote against the four best and most honest and independent candidates – Carl Jacobson, David Atkinson, Dave Burns, and Mike Dugan; and to vote for three of the worst candidates with strong ties to the firefighter and police unions – Scott Houston, Marie Fellhauer, and Cindee Topar.

First, there was nothing unusual or suspicious about the circumstances or the timing of the firing of City Manager Doug Willmore, although Willmore and his political allies want El Segundo voters to believe otherwise.

The Circumstances of the Firing

There was plenty of good cause to fire Willmore, but when an at-will employee is fired, no cause is given to reduce the City’s exposure to frivolous litigation. And the City Attorney advises the City Council members to not discuss the matter to avoid exposing the City to frivolous litigation, and Jacobson has followed that advice to protect the city at his own peril.

The 3-2 split vote to fire Willmore was not surprising because Willmore appeared to be doing Mayor Bush’s bidding, without consideration of the fact there are five equal members of the City Council and at least three votes are required to set City policy. And Councilman Fisher almost always votes in lock-step with Mayor Busch, as his proxy vote.

Mayor Busch admitted that Doug Willmore was doing his bidding. He gave direction to Willmore to investigate Chevron and to have City staff put in many work hours to do research and investigation, when the City Manager is only legally allowed to take direction from a majority vote or consensus of the City Council. There was no majority vote or consensus to direct Willmore to follow Busch’s direction to go after Chevron.

The KCET SoCal Connected show transcript states:

Eric Busch/Mayor of El Segundo: So I’d asked Doug to go investigate what Chevron contributed to the city as far as tax goes and compare that to other refineries throughout the state and other communities that have refineries.

For reasons I will not explain here, I am quite certain that Willmore was hired by a 3-2 split vote in closed session, and the 5-0 vote in open session was a mere courtesy vote for Mayor Busch and for Doug Willmore. However, Mayor Busch refused to return the courtesy when it was time to fire Willmore, and he and Fisher voted against the firing, giving Willmore ammunition to use to stir up controversy to get Jacobson unelected, and to sue the City for millions of dollars. Getting Jacobson unelected helps Busch get the candidates he supports elected – Marie Fellhauer and Scott Houston.

I am also quite certain that Carl Jacobson and Suzanne Fuentes had good reason to believe Willmore would not be a good choice for the City, and it turns out they were right.

It is not unusual or suspicious for Council members who voted against hiring a city manager to later vote to fire him when they have a third Council vote to do so, especially after poor performance such as the city employee union contract negotiations, and catering to the mayor instead of following the direction of a majority vote on City Council.

Councilman Don Brann, who provided the third vote needed to fire Willmore, had voted to hire Willmore, and supported Willmore’s attempt to get an additional $10 million per year in taxes from Chevron. So there is nothing unusual or suspicious with Brann’s vote to fire Willmore. I believe Brann voted along with Jacobson and Fuentes to fire Willmore because he realized he made a mistake in voting along with Busch and Fisher to hire Willmore, and he wanted to correct his mistake before his term on City Council ended with the coming election.

Willmore has cost the City and its taxpayers many millions of dollars extra per year in excessive and unsustainable firefighter and police union compensation and pensions for the next three years. He “negotiated” contracts with minimal employee concessions, no salary reductions and three different types of raises during a recession, and a guarantee of no layoffs for three years even if it bankrupts the City.

I believe that Willmore made written offers to the unions during his secret negotiations, and they accepted those offers, before Council members Carl Jacobson, Suzanne Fuentes, and Don Brann even saw what was being offered, and the offers reflected Mayor Busch’s desires rather than what the Council majority had directed.

Mayor Busch and City Manager Willmore scheduled the City Council vote to approve the firefighter and police union contracts at a special meeting with only 24 hours notice for the Council members and the public to even see the contracts, but they missed the legally required 24-hour deadline period to make the contracts public, and put them on the agenda at the next regular meeting soon thereafter.

And for both the canceled special meeting and the following regular meeting, the firefighter union contract in the agenda packet was missing the vital attachment that contained all of the firefighter salaries, redundant and non-work-related “special” compensation, automatic annual “step” raises, and automatic periodic “longevity” raises.

I also believe that Willmore did not have the City Attorney present when he was negotiating in secret with the unions and their attorneys, so there would be no check and balance to help ensure he was offering what a majority on the City Council had directed him to offer.

I also believe that at least one Council member who was against approving the new union contracts voted for them because he was advised by the City Attorney that the City would likely get sued by the unions for not negotiating in good faith if a majority on City Council voted against the contracts after they were offered and accepted in writing. The city employee union contracts were all approved by a 3-2 split vote of the City Council.

The Timing of the Firing

There is nothing suspicious or unusual about the timing of the firing of Doug Willmore, other than why it took so long to get a majority of the City Council to realize he was doing more harm than good for the City.

Willmore claimed in the KCET video that he was notified the City Council was going to hold a special meeting to terminate him eleven days after he allegedly gave the City Council and the City Attorney a copy of the 18-year-old MRC-Chevron-City settlement agreement and asked for a legal opinion. However, his timing does not add up.

Willmore would have been fired at least nine days before the day he claims he gave the City Council and City Attorney a copy of the old MRC-Chevron-City settlement agreement and asked for a legal opinion, had Councilman Don Bran not missed a City Council meeting, and had Councilwoman Suzanne Fuentes not been out of the state for almost two weeks, as I explain below.

Thus, Willmore’s claim that he was fired in retaliation for asking for that legal opinion is baseless. He probably asked for that legal opinion after learning he would be fired so he could claim retaliatory firing in a lawsuit against the City.

The KCET SoCal Connected video transcript states:

Gonzales: Doug is not a lawyer. So in January, he gave the council and the city attorney a copy of the 1993 agreement and asked for a legal opinion. He wasn’t around long enough to get an answer.

Willmore: Eleven days later I am notified that they are going to have this special hearing to terminate me. No reason.

However, the notice for the special meeting to fire Doug Willmore was posted on Wednesday, February 8, 2012 and the meeting was held on Thursday, February 9, 2012. Eleven days earlier would be Saturday, January 28, 2012. This does not add up. City Hall is closed on Saturdays, and also on Fridays.

Even if the day Willmore allegedly gave the City Council and City Attorney a copy of the 1993 agreement, and allegedly asked for a legal opinion, was actually Thursday, January 26, 2012, that is nine days after the date Doug Willmore would have been fired – January 17, 2012 – had Councilman Don Bran not been absent for the January 17, 2012 City Council meeting. Councilwoman Suzanne Fuentes was out of the state for almost two weeks, from Wednesday, January 18 through Monday, January 30, 2012, making a special meeting during that time period impractical.

It appears that Doug Willmore may have been planning to shakedown the City for several million dollars for quite some time. Otherwise, he would have been more responsive to Council members Brann, Jacobson, and Fuentes, who could make a 3-vote majority to fire him, and he would have done more to address their concerns and to improve his job performance.

It also appears that Willmore learned he was about to get fired, probably from one or both of his allies and supporters on Council – Mayor Busch and Mayor Pro Tem Fisher – and he tried to make an issue out of the old and perfectly legitimate legal settlement to the MRC-Chevron-City tax dispute, in order to sue the City for millions of dollars.

Thus, Busch and/or Fisher may have exposed the city to frivolous litigation by giving Willmore sufficient advance notice help him plan and start implementing his shakedown of the City before the day he was actually fired.

It also appears that Willmore sufficiently muddied the waters regarding the pre-existing plans to fire him, and that required further research and advice from the City Attorney, resulting in the delay until Thursday, February 9, 2012 – the day Willmore was actually fired.

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The Firing of El Segundo City Manager Doug Willmore – Part 1

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