No resolution from meeting between attorney for ex-chief Morales, city
No resolution came Monday from a meeting between the attorney for Milwaukee’s ousted police chief Alfonso Morales and the city, according to his attorney.
“The meeting was about an hour, and I think that the representative of the city and I had a different view of what the case was worth,” Morales’ attorney
Franklyn Gimbel told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday. “It was a preliminary discussion, and I think that we shall see in the next several days or week whether or not the city comes around to a position that is more reasonable from my client’s point of view.”
He declined to provide the settlement figures that the city was offering and Morales is seeking.
Gimbel said he met with Assistant City Attorney William Davidson and that City Attorney Tearman Spencer was not present.
Spencer declined to be interviewed Monday.
Members of the Common Council have questioned what legal advice the City Attorney’s Office provided to commissioners ahead of their vote, an issue where there appear to be conflicting accounts. Some have called for the
commissioners to be replaced and pointed fingers at Mayor Tom Barrett.
Barrett was not made available for an interview Monday.
Gimbel said over the weekend that the meeting would be key to Morales’ decision to either return as chief or seek financial compensation from the city following a judge’s ruling Friday that reversed his demotion that led to his retirement from the department.
Gimbel did not expect Morales to come back to the department during the negotiations. He said he could not comment now on whether Morales would prefer a settlement over returning to the position of the city’s top cop.
“I can tell you Chief Morales is not going to be there this afternoon with his uniform on,” Gimbel said.
Morales’ pension benefits remain unchanged at this point, and he continues to draw benefits, according to the city. He is currently eligible to receive up to about $104,000 in annual pension payments, according to city records.
The meeting followed a ruling Friday from Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Christopher Foley that reversed the unanimous August decision by the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission to demote Morales to captain.
After the commission’s decision, Morales retired, sued and requested a judicial review of the decision.
The city has acknowledged in a legal filing that Morales was denied due process, with Spencer asking the judge to send the matter back to the commission for a disciplinary appeal trial.
In his decision, Foley called the commission’s actions “indefensible.”
“The disregard for the statutory and constitutional requirements of notice and opportunity to be heard was open and obvious,” Foley wrote.
He wrote that he could not give further instructions beyond reversing the decision because of the commission’s own failures.
Morales’ demotion came after the commission issued him seven pages of directives to accomplish under threat of discipline up to and including termination.
Commissioners did not publicly explain how or why they issued the directives, and before Morales could complete them, the commission voted unanimously to demote him. The Police Department had disputed the legality of the directives, but Morales had said he was committed to fulfilling them.
Gimbel said he was not optimistic after Monday’s meeting that there would be an early settlement.
“The critical things are whether or not (city officials) are interested in bringing some closure to this case,” Gimbel said. “And my client is, but he has been instructed by counsel, my office, that he has multiple other litigation options here for the harm that was visited on him.”
If a settlement seems unlikely, he said he and Morales are considering a federal civil rights case and a breach of contract case with a civil rights component in state court. One or both of those lawsuits could be filed as soon as the middle of next month, he said.
Chief position in flux
The ruling further complicates an already convoluted effort by the commission to select the city’s next police chief.
Acting Chief Michael Brunson Sr., who became acting chief after Morales’ demotion, retires on Wednesday. A day before the ruling, the commission named Assistant Chief Jeffrey Norman as the next acting chief to succeed Brunson after not selecting him as one of the three finalists for the permanent position.
The commission, now with only six members because a seventh left the board citing its dysfunction, is tied between two external candidates. One of those candidates is a finalist for the chief position in his home department, where a decision is expected by the end of next week.
This month, commission Chairman Nelson Soler deferred another vote on the police chief position until Jan. 7 in an effort to allow for Common Council confirmation of Barrett’s nominee for the seventh commissioner.
But that nomination is held up in council because a background investigation was completed by an outside firm, not by the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, as required by city ordinance.
And Barrett’s re-nomination of current Commissioner Ann Wilson has also been held up in council. She will continue to serve on the commission even though a council vote has been delayed.
The council’s next meeting is scheduled for Jan. 19.
Meanwhile, Common Council members are calling for Norman to be given the opportunity to prove in the acting chief role that he should be given the permanent job.
Council members call for answers
Ald. Robert Bauman has called for the six remaining commissioners to be removed or resign over their handling of Morales’ case.
Council President Cavalier Johnson said over the weekend that he wants to know whether the commissioners received faulty legal advice from the City Attorney’s Office or whether they chose to ignore sound counsel. But, he said, “there ought to be some consequence.”
On Monday, Ald. Mark Borkowski said he, too, wanted to know what advice the City Attorney’s Office provided the commissioners before their vote. The City Attorney’s Office, he noted, participates in meetings in order to protect the city and taxpayers.
“That’s pretty much why they exist, it’s to protect us” he said. “And we were not protected in this case. It wasn’t even close.”
But he also said he would support the commissioners’ resignations or removals. He questioned how the commission could go from giving Morales another four-year contract a year ago to demoting him eight months later. What happened in those eight months is the commission’s responsibility, he said.
Gimbel, he predicted, would “fillet” the city and get a significant settlement for Morales.
Borkowski also slammed Barrett, whom he accused of not intervening with the commissioners before the decision and not being prepared, causing the debacle to play out in public.
“He should have had some sort of heads up that Morales was on some kind of thin ice,” Borkowski said. “Then he should have intervened and said, ‘OK, from an optics standpoint, we just gave this guy a four-year contract and now you’re planning on doing this?’”
The commissioners are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Common Council.