TheLiberalOC has learned that a bid for $200,000 in legal fees for the Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers for Economic Responsibility (CATER) over a lawsuit filed by Cynthia Ward claiming she was denied documents in a Public Records Act request was denied in Superior Court.
So no big payday for CATER’s lawyer Greg Diamond; just imagine what one could do with $200,000 of Anaheim Taxpayer money?
Here’s a copy of the memo sent via email to the Anaheim City Council and key members of City Staff from Kristin Pelletier, the acting city attorney (some sentence bolded for emphasis by us):
Subject: FW: Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers, et al. v. City of Anaheim, et al.
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council,
I am pleased to report that the Superior Court denied Cynthia Ward’s motion for $200,000 in attorney’s fees in the Public Records Act case she filed against the City. The court found that the City Clerk’s office made a reasonable attempt to accommodate Ward’s fairly vague PRA request, and that Ward did not make a good faith effort to resolve the matter before initiating litigation against the City. Mark Austin of Rutan & Tucker represented the City and did an excellent job of advocating on our behalf. The Clerk’s office is also to be commended for the job they did in responding to the PRA request. The end result of the litigation is that Ward got a few pages of documents that the City voluntarily produced and was denied any award of attorney’s fees.
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to discuss the court’s ruling or the underlying PRA case.
To see the order, click here
Time to check in with the IRS to see if CATER ever filed their form 990. It’s been a year and a half since we last checked and it wasn’t. They never filed one in 2016.
AnaheimBlog has lots more detail here.
Losers. Looking to enrich an underemployed crappy lawyer at taxpayer expense.
Find another handle please
Shoot. He was gonna donate to Gabe Nelsons defense too!
I wonder how this will affect his blogging. Pretty hard to make stuff up all night when you are working the morning shift at Starbucks!
Or maybe he makes his wife and kids pull triple shift like Uncle Joe did in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.
No Golden Ticket For Greg!
“The moving party is not the prevailing party in this action.” If you didn’t win the lawsuit. why would you expect to be awarded attorney fees?
Fresh off Greg and Cynthia’s failed shakedown of Anaheim and it’s taxpayers, His fellow con-artist/blogger Vern nelson is promoting a new way to squeeze money out of Disney, with it’s rag tag band of hustlers and miscreants.
Somehow, they believe that “Disney’s contribution to the homeless problem” needs to be exposed. Excuse me, they employ THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AT FAIR WAGES!
Terrorizing visitors and out of town guests is their form of blackmail, since they can not afford to go to Disneyland, so they’ll ruin it for the family from Iowa who saved all year to take this trip, NICE.
What if protesters surrounded the El Governator protesting the influx of criminals and drug gangs of Guanajuto? These guys would go Bannanas. yet, protesting good corperate citizens like Disney is somehow permissible.
Let’s say Greg’s rate was $400 an hour ( a stretch, I know). How could he possibly have racked up 500 hours on this case?
When you lack both intelligence and skill … the floor is the limit. And in Mr Diamond and his nieve client there is a dearth of both. I’m so glad they wasted Anaheim taxpayer money to prove this point beyond any doubt.
I was thinking $200. (given his savings of an actual office, phone line, copier, law library etc….) was a stretch, so that put’s my guess at 1,000 hours OR 41 FULL 24 Hour Days OR 125 eight hour days. THIS WAS A FRIVIOULS CLAIM. OR IN ENGLISH A LIE.
Doesn’t add up if you look at his BLOG POSTS from this time frame. It’s pretty clear, Diamond and CATER were trying to defraud the good people of Anaheim. I would wish the city had recourse to go after Cynthia (because GD has NOTHING to go after), confiscate her house in the colony district and turn it into a homeless shelter. That would solve a lot of problems. Of course they’d have to kill the Corgi’s……………
I don’t think the dogs would go to waste. Racist Greg likes to joke about Koreans eating dogs, so maybe the hypocritical bigot would have some new material.
Oh Hi Paul “Henry Lipton” Lucas. You cowardly anonymous bully.
Do you think Diamond was billing for his blogging? We’re blog posts part of the legal argument?
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Looks like making a false claim for money against the city can allow someone to bring a private suit against these knuckleheads.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&division=3.&title=2.&part=2.&chapter=6.&article=9
Rich
How much did these two buttholes cost the taxpayers of Anaheim? The city should sue to recover legal fees
Seriously, Dan, you let them post something about killing my dogs? Please tell me all about how yours is the better vision for Anaheim or the world. Go ahead and claim your moral high ground, while drawing the type of people as readers who find it amusing to reference killing dogs, (in a promotion to drive an Anaheim family into bankruptcy, there is a charitable attitude) and then LEAVE the comment up as if it is acceptable to this website’s views. New low. Seriously new low.
Obviously, I cannot get into the case for now, as I still don’t know whether the City will pursue me for those costs, and we are also still within the window in which I may file an appeal, so you understand I am not going to show all my cards, not here, not now, perhaps not even ever. I don’t need you to know I did the right thing, I know I did.
A Judge did not rule against ME, or my obtaining records, nor did I “lose everything” as the Judge ruled on a very narrow window of info that cost me the ability to pay my lawyers, a chance they took when they took the case. This was not just Greg Diamond, I also had an expert in CPRA who came into the case later, saw the merit in the case itself and the work that had already been done and saw enough value in it to put his own fees on the line based on the case and Greg’s prior work. That is why there are 6 figures worth of costs and fees. People don’t do that for “frivolous cases” especially not when sanctions are at stake for that behavior.
The info you are working from is a TENTATIVE RULING, which means tentative until discussed and debated in a Hearing, which you were not at, so you cannot know the Judge backed off of some elements of that tentative, ESPECIALLY the initial premise of false filing or whatever it was called, he reversed himself on that.
I have no problem sleeping at night because I know I am not at fault in this case, the City was in control of how long that case dragged on, how much legal time it ran up, and the City could have ended it all at any time by giving me the records they admitted they owed me, while claiming they were willing.
If I was looking for a big payday for my lawyers I would not have settled and taken a chance on getting my lawyers paid, I would have gone to trial (regardless of cost) where the docs I have show complete violation of CPRA on several levels, and had I not believed the Judge understood that based on his own comments in the past I would have gone to trial. Despite Ms. Pelletier’s claims I got significantly MORE than a few docs, and they are not favorable to the City, given my initial purpose for wanting them.
I can only respect Judge DiCesare and his opinion, and learn from a very brutal experience that turned my life inside out with NO benefit of any kind to me. I lost more in billable hours and paying others to do what I used to do for myself than I would have spent had I simply paid Greg. I have been subjected to false claims of criminal actions, and now the blogosphere talks about taking my home and killing my dogs. For a PUBLIC RECORDS ACT CASE. Consider that.
BTW-I live in a town where the name of our local ball club is a JOKE in late night talk show host monologues, and THAT is also the result of a court order that very few people other than Arte Moreno agree with. And if you think government agencies don’t withhold records to protect themselves you haven’t talked with Judge Goethals lately. Sometimes the law does things we don’t agree with but we have to respect. Sometimes government acts in its own interests to the detriment of the public. Sometimes we the people get stuck in the middle. But I am still glad I tried, because to roll over and let the City bully me would be worse.
Dan, you may not like me, you may not agree with me, but I have NEVER EVER given you any reason to believe I am anything but truthful, with the best interests of Anaheim residents at heart at all times, and up until the Angels agreements you even admitted you found me ethical and balanced and able to see all sides of an issue and work reasonably with others. Then the Angels agreements (and the Stadium District back room real estate development fueled by a renewed effort to redo RDA, an effort funded through Rutan and Tucker and facilitated by your friends) threw you into hysterics and made me the enemy for not buying that taxpayers should forfeit the benefits of developing the real property promised as return on our investment of many decades.
I didn’t ask for those documents out of idle curiosity, I believed something very hinky was going on and so did many others who looked into that scam hidden behind a ball club that was OFFERED the 150 acres to act as the go-between for someone looking to score big on the backs of Anaheim taxpayers. Every document I have received has verified my belief that there was more going on behind the scenes than the City wanted to be made public, and it appears they wanted me out of the way and without those docs until they could get the deal done. As it turns out the deal died, which let them finally dole out the records they had been sitting on and admit to NOT HAVING an entire category of other records, an admission NEVER made before that may have averted part of the litigation had the City admitted to it.
Again, what you think of me matters little to me, and you can disagree with me, you can hate my guts, but MY DOGS AND MY FAMILY SHOULD BE OFF LIMITS to any reasonable person, and to condone such disgusting messages in your own comments section, which I know you moderate, is frankly beyond low.
Wow. We had no idea how much work you put in nor, can we understand why.
I don’t believe anyone threatened your precious canines or your family, it was simply pointed out that you risked your home and retirement on a lawyer of Diamonds caliber and naturally you LOST. That makes me question your judgement.
For the record, I don’t think ANYONE in the OC blogesphere doesn’t believe you r Corgi’s are better frd and more cared for than Greg Diamonds step-children and grandchild. You love your dogs and that shows in your willingness to defend and provide for them.
Good luck in your case. Hopefully you learned a lesson (hopefully not 100,000 of them).
Maybe you should consider hiring a REAL lawyer and suing Greg for malpractice.
You don’t understand why I would fight for my right to get public records I was owed under the law? Do you roll over and take it when your government is jerking your chain? May God help our nation if we become people who are complacent in the face of government playing the bully.
I will give one example of one category I requested, and again leaving it simple in the event I end up back in court defending the few dollars of home equity left to me, but one of the things I asked for was 700 forms for the consultants and contractors working the deal. Those are required by City COI policy to be collected on the “broadest disclosure” so I had every reason to believe they were in the City’s possession, and I know they are NEVER exempt under CPRA, in fact they are supposed to be AT the City Clerk’s desk for immediate review. The City’s response to me in September 2013 was simply that other than the few docs they gave me the rest were EXEMPT from disclosure, without other explanation. My IMMEDIATE return email asking for info on what was withheld and if there was a way to redact and disclose was IGNORED despite later internal records showing the 4 people at City Hall (2 City Atty and 2 City Clerk staff) responsible for answering me ignored me. Under the law the City HAS to provide that info. So imagine you have every reason to believe the City has records you know to be subject to disclosure, the City has not told you they DON’T have them, (opening a can of worms for violation of COI policy and possibly State law) the City’s only response is that I cannot have anything else while refusing to tell me what is being withheld. Would you seriously NOT push back?
The City’s response was NOT to provide records once they “understood” the request, but to keep them from me for YEARS while sucking me under with paperwork, knowing they were crushing me needlessly for records they owed me. because I have to believe the point of keeping this suit alive was not about the records or the City’s intent, but about using public resources to kick my teeth in, on orders from a Council majority acting like a bunch of bullies and ordering their legal team to return with Cynthia Ward’s broomstick and shoes and they don’t care what it cost. If you have a better explanation for the City Attorney looking me in the eye and admitting he knows what I asked for and he isn’t giving it to me, you let me in on it.
The City kept digging in even after Arte walked away from the MOUs. So even if I felt like dropping the issue for its lack of relevance to any viable project, any move on my part to quit the suit would be interpreted as not “prevailing” and I would be in the same place I am today. So like having a tiger by the tail, I was stuck in this nightmare until the CITY chose to end it by giving me the docs JUST BEFORE TRIAL. You tell me how I was supposed to minimize fees, or remove myself from this nightmare when the CITY was running the show.
You missed the other key point, in your haste to bash Greg. HE WASN’T MY ONLY LAWYER! Greg got the lawsuit off the ground, but an expert in CPRA came in and ran with what was done later. That expert who has NO horse in this race and no emotional connections to Anaheim saw the value in this case, and put his own fees on the line in the belief that the case was valid and Greg’s work could be used and built upon. The Judge’s ruling was not wholly reflected in the tentative that was posted, and ultimately rested on ONE very narrow area of the case, the OPINION that the Judge believed the City had ALWAYS been willing to cough up the records, had they understood my request, an opinion I don’t share because I saw how many years it took them to give me the records long after admitting they knew what I wanted.
You know nothing of the details of the case, or how hard I did try to resolve this, with the City jerking me at around at each step, because the whole point of keeping me stuck in litigation was to keep me stuck in litigation. The Judge ruled on one narrow window without consideration for the events happening outside that window and I have to respect that as I respect him.
But I find it interesting that there is such hatefulness against me when my “crime against humanity” was to attempt to enforce State law for records I DID eventually get, records that show they were in the possession of the City when I asked for them and respondent to the focus of my request, and kept by the City until just before trial when they would be ORDERED to kick them loose. So clearly there is some personal animosity injected into this discussion that isn’t about being angry because actions cost the taxpayers money, but simply an excuse to beat up those you don’t like. You are free to do that, but understand that your hatefulness is showing when people CHEER for a family losing their home for having stood up to government bullying them. And leave my dogs out of it.
Nobody cheereed for the demise of your home that presumably your husband worked long and hard for you to enjoy. That is another fantasy you employ.
NOBODY threatened your pup’s to the contrary, the post I read voiced concern that YOUR irresponsibility and big fat mouth (yeah that same one you like to strangely self-depricatavely describe;WEIRD) got ypu into a mess your underemployed “kitchen table” lawyer couldn’t get off of First Base (We’ll leave the FACT that you got there on a walk aside!).
Who is this “Expert” why is this the first we have heard of him/her. If this person exisists, I would suspect its someone operating out of a PO BOX in San Dimas. The same apartment based lawyer used by other OC Bloggers.
Nobody “hates” you Cynthia, we simply question your motives, intelligence, faith and honor.
You are as believeable and respoponsible as “one punch Doug”, the last shill Tait threw out and then abandoned.
I hope you can enjoy this evenings events.
And the judge ruled against you. Loser.
Your lawyers did you a disservice. They ran up fees to the point of excessiveness. Sure hope their fees were on contingency. The lawsuit I was involved in cost significantly less.
The problem was that her first lawyer didn’t know what he was doing otherwise he’d have told her she had no case. And that exemplified by the excessive billing. She tried to stick us taxpayers with the bill and she lost. As a public official I hope she knows that she cannot take free legal services. Shows her right. Win one for us taxpayers.
There was a reference to a comment Greg made about your dogs; there is no threat against your dogs here at all.
$200K in legal fees you asked for disqualify you from arguing about wasted taxpayer dollars moving forward.
I have no issue with you Cynthia, but if I were Arte Moreno right now, I’d be cutting deals with the city of Carson that has already cleared an NFL stadium for two teams that wont play there and reconfigure the site for a baseball only park for the Angels. At that point, you and Greg and Tait would share the blame for the team leaving Anaheim. Humor me — how many games have you actually attended in the last 3 years.
Btw Vern, I do wish I knew Vasquez and OC Dem personally. I don’t. I might but they have chosen to shield these identities from me. And even so, you protect your own anonymous commenters. I both can attest I have deleted comments of theirs that cross a line or are over the top. But I will let them debate here. If I allowed comments from Henry Lipton aka Paul Lucas and Randy Rowdy aka Dave Zenger, I’ll allow it here
Yeah. Its OK for Paul Lucas Vern Nelson and Dave Zenger to use fake names, but God forbid people close to OR involved with the DPOC try to protect themselves against “Crazy Greg” or firebug felon Paul “Henry” Lucas.
So Vern is it approprite for you guys to use phony names but not me? Oh I get it: anonominity is only OK when you are wearing a guy fawkes mask, fire-bombing Anaheim businesses, harrassing tourists or baiting cops? Come on guys defend Lucas and Zenger…………
Hey Paul Lucas. Getting convicted of a felony makes DPOC look bad. Does your orange jumpsuit still fit?
Yesenia posted a video of what looks like Verns wife going bezerk on the cops ( big surprise).
How can these nuts claim to be democrats when all they do is attack law enforcement? The APOA should fund a cadidate to go after FAKE DEM Jose Moreno. He hates cops just like Vern and Donna do.
Where is this posted? Link?