Fremont City Council will be holding a special closed session tonight with the city attorney to discuss THIRTEEN (yes, THIRTEEN) ongoing civil suits against the city.
While it is not unusual for a city council to go into closed sessions to discuss legal matters, the fact that there are so many pending civil suits against the city is astounding, and the fact that the mayor and city council refuse to comment on anything is not only shameful, but a violation of the Brown Act which requires local governments to provide the public with transparency.
What we do know is that #7 has to do with the wrongful death shooting of pregnant teenager Elena Mondragon, which the family has already been awarded a $21 million judgment against the City of Fremont. The City of Fremont will be liable for half. To put this into perspective, the only larger judgment for wrongful death at the hands of the police is only George Floyd at $27 million. This tells you how atrocious the jury found the actions of the Fremont Police Department and City in how they tried to cover this up and then cover their own butts. It is believed Fremont will be appealing. Here's more information on this case:
2 is Hendry v City of Fremont.This one is atrocious, having to do with discrimination and abuse of two female Fremont fire department personnel.
Here's the complaint with the details of the allegations. Please read--the treatment of these female first responders is atrocious:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14_YKnB83-5UrkvWHrJWjkCmku-PQ_Unu/view
Summary: A current female fire division chief (Diane Hendry) is suing the City of Fremont for retaliation and failure to prevent retaliation. She alleges she was discriminated against and prevented from carrying out her duties, because she had advocated for the reinstatement of a female recruit who had been wrongfully terminated when a training captain falsified her evaluations and manipulated the test criteria to justify her termination weeks before her graduation from the academy. Hendry (and Emily Scott, the former recruit) continues to be on active duty and the escalations and attitudes, which can not be assumed to have stopped based on the complaint, are deeply problematic.
The city of Fremont could have acted upon the report from an outside investigation that found evidence of manipulation of test scores, harassment, and retaliation, and addressed the abuse by disciplining those involved, reforming the system, while reiterating a no tolerance for discrimination policy. Instead, it continues to tout its diversity initiatives while burying this issue in secrecy, forcing these brave women to take this suit all the way to a jury trial (scheduled for early November).
Not only is this outrageous from an ethical and moral standpoint, the City of Fremont is having taxpayers pay for these trials, and eventually we will have to pay for the settlements and/or judgments.
The public will be able to make comments prior to the closed session via email or on Zoom. Here is the meeting notice with the instructions. Meeting will be held at 6pm tonight:
https://www.fremont.gov/home/showpublisheddocument?id=11457
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Friends and neighbors, as we keep up to date with the ongoing cover ups and demand transparency from our Fremont officials, please help by forwarding this petition and these updates to your friends and neighbors. Please check out our updates with action items. Please keep speaking up! Something is wrong in the state of Fremont (to paraphrase Hamlet). WE NEED ALL YOUR VOICES AND ATTENTION OR CORRUPTION WINS.