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A.G. won’t pursue investigation of Adams

September 10, 2014

By DANIEL BLACKBURN

Two top Arroyo Grande officials escaped further sanctions late Tuesday after council members veered from promises to probe deeper into the pair’s late-night rendezvous in City Hall.

The July 3 incident involving City Manager Steve Adams and subordinate Teresa McClish, community development director, was kept submerged from public view following a brief inquiry into the matter by the city attorney’s office. Deputy City Attorney Michael McMahon elected to believe Adams and McClish’s accounts over police officer official reports.

The council went into closed session Tuesday at the end of their regular meeting to discuss Adam’s job performance. After an hour, they emerged to report they had taken no action, meaning the matter is now officially closed.

City Manager Steve Adams and Teresa McClish

City Manager Steve Adams and Teresa McClish/Photo by Daniel Blackburn

Police responding to an emergency call from McClish’s husband led them to a darkened City Hall, where they discovered the pair in a back office with clothing askew.

According to Adams, the pair had been “drinking tea” to sober up after attending a restaurant opening.

Grainy video provided by the city shows Adams running across the street toward City Hall to join McClish in the parking lot following the event. He then turns and runs after several people leave Roberts Restaurant and returns several minutes later after McClish flashes her car lights.

Tuesday’s meeting drew a slightly smaller crowd than two weeks ago, when three members of the council expressed their desire to schedule a discussion of the matter on the regular meeting agenda. Instead, the item was placed at the very end of the agenda and conducted in secret as required by law, according to City Attorney Timothy Carmel.

Resident Otis Page told the council, “You lied to us. You promised an agenda item to discuss this openly yet you did not agendize it. This issue has legs and it is not going away. Dishonesty has costs.” Vanessa Andrews said she is “one of those people who is upset. If you support Adams and McClish in this you are creating a hostile work environment. Do the right thing for once.”

Heather Jensen said she was “disappointed” by the lack of an agenda discussion.

“We citizens need to know what happened,” she said. “We need a Grand Jury probe.”

Connie Avila noted police department personnel were “gagged” by city officials, and Beatrice Spencer said city officials were accepting Adams’ version of events over the interpretation of four police officers.

Bob Hatch, who said he is a 40-year resident of the city, asked the council to stop the investigation.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who don’t want this to go on,” he said.

Adams and McClish sat together for a brief period while McClish outlined a city program for the council.


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We should all send the happy couple our congratulations, they seem to have temporarily escaped being fired, the punishment any other two employees would have received.


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I saw Lueker at the Festival but not Shultz. That is so incredible for them to be there volunteering and helping make that event a success. I certainly didn’t see Irons, Christine Johnson or Smuckler volunteering. They were probably off at conference with Katie Lichten and Ferraro eating and drinking on taxpayer dimes and figuring out how to further screw up out town and County


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I feel the over all opinion in this matter is it will take care of it self , The feeling is it’s a top down problem, If the problem are going to fix them selves, how is that going to happen when you have the same people year after year going into office, or they are Blessed by the leader’s as having sim. views, You have had two people in the council the public never had a vote on this is happen way to often how could you not have control over who is put into office.


The over feeling these days in the public office down town is in general the people do not count, people in the city office do not need to run their office like everyone else does,return phone calls over all just be business like, Some of the people in the dept. do not think their job is to uphold city stand. and over all working with the general public, instead they see fit to add self imposed standard or desire for crazy information that they deem important..


News Flash City employee ,our tax dollars pay your wages! When did this city become this way.. When did it become a good thing for cities to be difficult to work with the general public.

Does more redtape,rules,and reg’s make our life better, or more meaningful, Does this add value, I had one client tell me “This is not our City of Arroyo Grande” When did they get so hard to deal with??? well stop standing on the side lines and take part, Stop waiting for others to take a stand,join a group, let them hear your opinion!


What’s going on in the City these days,each dept. or Commitee has their own set of rules of course, but the see themselves as King’s or Queen’s, and by God you had better kiss their rings… and jump if they say jump.. The shear size ,and amounts of the ego’s in this city is astronomical Wake up people it’s only going to get worse, ever time some scandal comes and goes , the Kids act up more,why because they got away with it, when did it become fashionable to speak out of both sides of your mouth,to be dishonest, and break your own rules. Is this Your City? Is this what you want ? Change starts with YOU & Your Family! I feel no one cares.


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SO where’s the missing 80 minutes from the surveillance tapes?


“Chief Steve Annibali explained the missing segments as issues with the wireless feed, and then provided complete video copies taken from the hard drive inside the Blue Watch camera unit, which included the previously missing segments.”


So, I ask again, where are these tapes? Why weren’t they provided under the original request?


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DennySLO ,

The Man who had keys to City Hall, and was on tape, went into city hall on July 4, and He, Removed the 80 min from the tape, Who else would have any reason to be in City Hall on July 3 & 4 th other then someone who did not want the tape to be seen.


A clue is Richard Nixon is no longer with US.


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Line up the pigs that make up the City council, hog tie them and kick them to the street. The city managers of this county are a joke. This guy to start along with corrupt Wade McKinney that left Atascadero who basically slept with Kelly Gearhart, and the bald phat guy Jim App who thinks he is the leader of the world by gifting the old chief of police 250k for groping men in a hot tub are the real bad guys here. Top them off with the overpaid queen of SLO and the citizens keep electing council members who wont make a change? What a joke.


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Morro Bay had the only hard working ethical City Manager in the County and fired her to bring in one like the rest. You are so right…what a joke.


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I always found her to be helpful, considerate and very knowledgeable. She formed a strong team of department heads which have literally fallen apart during the reign of the interim city manager who irons, christine johnons and smuckler picked. The other interesting thing is that she is still well respected and outright loved in this community, regardless of the ugly and cruel treatment she received from irons, christine Johnson and smuckler. I also understand that she as well as the city attorney were never given a reason why irons, Christine Johnson or smuckler forced them out.


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Hey, did any of you see schultz and leuker at the Avocado/Margarita fest this weekend. All I can say is that is pretty classy, both working, volunteering, for an event, held in a city where the elected officials basically S__T on them. Funny how I didn’t see irons, christine Johnson or smuckler anywhere volunteering for the event, but maybe I just missed them?


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Are you comparing them to Adams and McClish?


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Christine could not make it. She had some problems at her hairdressers. Her bangs were not cutting it.


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Yeah, nothing was going on, just like O.J. didn’t kill his wife.


This situation is a PRIME example of why I don’t respect government officials. I don’t give a crap what they say or what they tell me to do. Unfortunately, most of the time their stupid decisions affect my life. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t waste ten seconds thinking about them or posting stuff like this.


Government officials and their inflated self-importance just makes me sick They can all go pound sand for all I care.


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Oh yes, they were simply having tea, a bible study season which required them to bare their soles to god. Yes, we all believe it. Council has said as much and we all know that council members never lie.


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Yeah, I agree. Government officials NEVER lie and cops ALWAYS do.


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We can all sit here and wine, or lets do a petition to impeach the entire city council, then fire the lot of them. Think about this, 80 minutes of a surveillance tap is missing. Thus, low level staff, mid-level staff and upper management are all involved in a cover up. Now are they doing this for money, or because their bosses turn their cheek the other way when they steal from the City. A guy who works at AG for over a year, brought 10 bags of concrete, rebar and exterior plants home every week – all from the City yard. Another low-life City employee spends his early am in the ocean with a City vehicle parked in the parking lot – he is on duty.


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