By Clarence Cromwell
The campaign to pass Measure C is over, but squabbling between groups for and against the measure carries on.
Opponents of the utility-users tax lambasted Mayor Randy Attaway at an April 1 Town Council meeting for allegedly pressuring the former chairwoman of the Trails and Bikeways Committee to support the measure. The mayor called the charge untrue, saying he was misunderstood by his accuser.
"There is no place in government for someone who inflicts his opinion on others," said Carol Ann Weber, chairwoman of the trails panel. Weber resigned in protest from her post, according to a March 12 letter to the Town Clerk.
After Weber leveled her accusation at the mayor, Councilmember Steve Blanton said, "I would suggest some kind of investigation by the sheriff's department or the district attorney's office." Blanton was the only councilmember to oppose the tax.
During the public-comment period of the meeting, Weber repeated a claim she made in a letter published in last week's Los Gatos Weekly-Times.
Weber said she expressed her opposition to Measure C during a phone call with then-Councilmember Attaway last fall.
According to Weber's account of the call, Attaway told Weber she wouldn't be reappointed if she opposed Measure C.
Weber said Attaway told her, "I can't have someone on a commission go against the Town Council--I can't support you if you don't support me."
When the council appointed Attaway mayor two or three weeks later, Weber said she felt more threatened. Tradition dictated that Blanton be appointed mayor, because he was then vice mayor. But he was bypassed by the other councilmembers, who said they didn't like his opposition to the utility-users tax, which the council had placed on the ballot. "If they could bypass Steve then, to me, what Randy said to me had a heightened level of threat," Weber said.
Attaway denied Weber's charges and said he didn't pressure Weber. Asked by Measure C opposition leader Egon Jensen, during the April 1 meeting, if he issued the ultimatum, Attaway responded, "No, it is not true." In a phone interview, Attaway later said he encouraged the commissioner to support the tax.
"Yes, I wanted her to support Measure C. Yes, I gave her reasons," Attaway said. "But wanting her support and demanding her support are different things."
The mayor said the reason he gave Weber to support the measure was that the tax might make dollars available for her committee's projects.
The issue was probably a miscommunication, Attaway said, and added that he thought bringing it up in a public session of the council was the wrong way to handle it.
"We all have disagreements, but this is not how you handle them. If I was misunderstood, I should have been confronted in a different atmosphere than that," Attaway said. "This seems to be more of a vicious attack than reviewing a disagreement--which I didn't know we had."
According to Attaway, he has spoken to Weber on several occasions since the phone call, but she didn't bring the subject up.
Weber said she didn't want the accusation to interfere with fair debate of Measure C.
"I didn't want it to be construed as a tactic," she said.
After the election, Weber called the district attorney's office to ask whether the mayor's request for Measure C support was legal, she said.
Special Assistant District Attorney Bill Larsen confirmed that Weber asked him about the phone call. He said his office doesn't comment on any case until it receives a written report from the complainant and decides whether to file charges. In the mayor's instance, Larsen said, he hasn't yet received a written account from Weber and no investigation is under way. "It's nothing right now, as far as the DA's office is concerned," Larsen said.
Blanton, however, takes the allegation seriously.
He called the Weekly-Times two days after the council meeting with a prepared statement reiterating the need for an investigation.
"Calling for an investigation was the most personally painful thing I've done during my tenure on the council," Blanton stated. "I've served with Randy for six years and had a great amount of affection for him.
"But these are serious charges by a respected member of one of our commissions," Blanton continued. "The issue must be treated seriously. And review provides the opportunity for Randy to be exonerated. Without an examination of the facts, a cloud will now hang over him and the council in perpetuity."
Other members of the council drew back from the fray.
Linda Lubeck said the April 1 meeting was the first time she'd seen such tension among Los Gatans. She called for an end to it.
"We don't want to be Saratoga," Lubeck said. "We don't want to be fractious."
Lubeck said she believes Attaway was misunderstood during the reported phone call.
"I have to tell you that I think Carol Ann misinterpreted whatever she thought Randy was saying. I think it's been blown out of proportion, and I have full confidence in this council and all of its members."
Patrick O'Laughlin agreed. "I know Randy Attaway well," O'Laughlin said, "and that's not the nature of his personality--to pressure or intimidate or threaten--on any issue."
Voters turned down Measure C on March 26, with more than 62 percent of voters casting ballots against it. The measure would have raised for the town $800,000 a year over the next five years by charging residents a 2 percent tax on their utility bills.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, April 10, 1996.
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