Simmering Tensions
Kologi cited an alternate reason he believes his and Morelli’s relationship soured, which he alluded to in his letter to Gusciora.
“Everything changed when Council began an inquiry into Law Department practices as a result of a breach of privacy matter involving the dissemination of certain private personnel documents,” Kologi wrote referring to the firefighter memo. “For reasons Mr. Morelli is well aware of, he then embarked on an effort to discredit us.
“With all due respect, it would have been prudent for you to have made a comprehensive inquiry into the aforesaid issues before publicly taking us to task for something we had no role in, and for accusing us of deficiencies which are illusory.”
A text messages exchange between the dueling attorneys appears to show that Morelli was also upset that Kologi didn’t stand up for him when McBride attempted to shun him from the executive session.
“You really had my back there, didn’t you, Ed,” Morelli wrote Sept. 3.
Kologi, who confirmed the texts were genuine, said the text exchange was over the Rice notice issue, not the OPMA debacle.
“John. I’m sorry. She wouldn’t recognize me to give any opinion, and at the end I tried to raise the issue of who gets the Rice notices but they did a quick adjournment. I should have handled it better.”
Kologi went on to tell Morelli, “You have been great to me and I am beside myself at not handling this better. I think I was flabbergasted that Conlon gave an opinion as to the conflict issue, and I guess i expected a Council member to jump in and argue why are we going this route.
“In any event, if after this is over you believe you should cut us loose, I truly understand. I’m on my porch drinking scotch and opining that when I f**k up it’s a doozy. Regardless of what happens, you will always have my respect and friendship. Please delete this text at some point. EJK.”
Kologi denied his “f**k up” had to do with him not advising council against hearing Liu’s pitch.
“I think Morelli was one of our biggest cheerleader until that September 3 day,” Kologi said. “The law department doesn’t even know all the fires that I put out before they even got to them because this is what we were supposed to do.
“For the mayor to assault our competence and accuse us of things that are just factually inaccurate and to portray us the negative way he did ... we have been defamed significantly . ... I am very upset about it.”