Everett’s city council ratcheted up the pressure on Mayor Carlo DeMaria to repay $180,000 in “improper” bonus payments by demanding that he stop using city funds to fight a state report that concluded he should return the money.
The council passed a resolution on Monday calling for the DeMaria administration to “immediately cease and desist” using city funds to pay lawyers to challenge the findings of the inspector general who determined DeMaria received more money than he was due and that he’d concealed the payments from the city council and the public. The city has already started paying those legal fees.
City councilor Stephanie Smith told GBH News before Monday’s meeting that paying those legal fees was “not aligned with the best interests of the taxpayers we serve.”
“Allocating public funds to dispute findings and recommendations of an independent state agency not only undermines public trust but it’s a misuse of public resources that serves only to shield the executive branch from taking accountability,” said Smith, who is also chair of the committee that reviews city finances and spending.
Lawyers from the firms Paik Deal and Greenberg Traurig appeared at a city council meeting earlier this month on behalf of the mayor, the city’s CFO and the city administration to contest the findings of the inspector general’s report and to support the mayor’s assertion that he won’t pay back the bonuses until he gets “due process.”
An invoice for more than $33,000 from Paik Deal showed the city had been charged nearly $7,500 by attorney Young Paik just to appear at that meeting, with invoices from Greenberg Traurig not yet submitted.
The city council’s attorney, Christopher Petrini, said those lawyers were advocating for the mayor’s personal interests rather than the interests of the overall community, and charging the city for that, he said, might violate state law. Petrini also said the office of the state inspector general, who wrote the report, is independent and has “no bias or axe to grind.”
“That report was a sea change. That report basically made the city cross the Rubicon. And after that point, in my view, it was no longer proper to use city funds to pay the mayor’s lawyers to oppose the IG report,” Petrini said.
City councilors set a 7-day deadline for the mayor to respond to their latest request. Councilors don’t have the power to compel the mayor to comply, though a court or the state ethics commission could, Petrini told them.
“Unless the mayor voluntarily agrees, it’s still an open question,” Petrini said.
DeMaria has not publicly commented on the resolution and did not respond to a request for comment sent prior to the council meeting.
