Conner and City of South Lake Tahoe getting closer to ending legal issues

For the past 18 months, South Lake Tahoe City Councilwoman JoAnn Conner and the City have been at odds since she filed two lawsuits against them on December 9, 2015.

During Tuesday's Council meeting, Mayor Wendy David made the following announcement about the potential end of the legal matters after both sides met with a mediator on June 14:

“We do have some reportable action from our closed session on JoAnn Conner versus the City of South Lake Tahoe, and we would like to announce that the city and Conner met in mid-June in a mediation session and we reached a settlement agreement in which Conner agreed to dismiss the city in Conner versus the City of South Lake Tahoe with prejudice,” said David. “The parties are in the process of finalizing the terms of the settlement agreement. Once finalized, the settlement agreement will be executed. The agreement will result in each party covering their own cost and fees, and there will be no payments between the parties.”

According to Conner's attorney, what David said was in direct violation of the agreement terms.

"What I can tell you, the Mayor's comments were premature," said Jacqueline Mittelstadt, Conner's attorney. "Her comments were in direct violation of the provisions of the settlement agreement. No settlement agreement has been approved by both parties. Yes, the conceptual viewpoints were agreed to in mediation but then the process has to take the viewpoints into language that both parties agree upon and we haven't reached that point."

Even though no money will exchange hands between the involved parties, both sides will have to pay their own legal fees. Conner's amount isn't known, but the City allotted $110,000 to fight the lawsuit for both Kerry and themselves, and the last known amount spent was over $75,000, which comes out of the City budget.

"An agreement was negotiated and all parties involved signed off on the conceptual view points," Conner told South Tahoe Now. "There is no settlement and no lawsuits will be withdrawn until the entire agreement is put in place."

Back on December 9 of 2015, Conner filed two lawsuits concerning the October 19 City Council censure of her due to alleged bullying of staff and partnering agency staff. One challenged the protocol of the censure, and the other challenged how the city applied the censure.

Since City Staff report to City Manager Nancy Kerry, the protocol required Conner to go through her in order to arrange time with staff. At the October censure meeting which was overflowing with spectators, the Council voted 4-1 to censure Conner as well as voting to stand behind Kerry's decision to direct staff to not interact with Conner individually. Conner voted no on both items.

Without knowing the contents of the proposed agreement, it is unclear what, if anything, will change in how Conner interacts with staff.

Middlestadt said the City added two terms to the agreement just before Tuesday's meeting, items she and Conner were unaware of she said.

Both sides have to agree on the language of the final agreement. Details of this will be made public via a joint press release once it is completed.

If one side refuses to sign the final agreement, the other party can file a motion with the court to enforce the settlement created from mediation. Then a judge will have to look at it and decide what the language of the final agreement should be (worse case scenario), or in a best case scenario, they get something both sides can agree on, sign it and get finalized.

Middlestadt informed the court that a tentative agreement had been made, much like what David said, but that was before the two additions were added onto the document. All sides still need to sign and approved the document and all provisions contained inside, which hasn't happened yet.