The three-month $24,000 contract has some wondering how the city, bombarded by environmental lawsuits, can afford the firm.
By Jonathan Friedman / Special to the Malibu Times
City officials say the recent hiring of a public relations firm will help spread the message to the public of what Malibu is doing to improve its water quality as well as other municipal efforts. However, the head of an environmental group that has filed three pending lawsuits against the city questioned how Malibu can afford the firm’s service.
Last month, the city hired Fiona Hutton & Associates on a three-month trial contract for $24,000. The Studio City-based firm headed by public relations veteran Fiona Hutton represents a number of government entities, private companies and environmental groups. It has also worked on several ballot initiative campaigns, including those for bonds to fund environmental programs. Without being reviewed by city council, the contract was negotiated by City Manager Jim Thorsen, who has the authority to make expenditure decisions under $25,000 without council approval. If there is interest in extending the contract, that would go before the council.
In a telephone interview last week, Thorsen called Hutton “a recognized environmental PR firm throughout the industry,” and said the firm has already done a “fantastic job.”
“The council has had concerns with PR and making sure we get proper information to the public in an expedient manner,” Thorsen said. “We are now able to do that.”
Thorsen noted that Hutton’s efforts have already led to television news stories on the city’s selection of a firm to design the new City Hall and an event by EA Sports that included a donation to the city for the development of Legacy Park.
The city’s public relations work had previously been handled by Susan Shaw, whose job was mostly focused on the Legacy Park project. Her contract expired in May 2009. She has since moved to Colorado, and taken a new job there.
Mayor Andy Stern last week said he did not think of Hutton’s hiring as doing public relations, but rather as “education for the public so they understand what the city is doing.”
“The city, until hiring Fiona [Hutton], did a really good job on the work it was doing and a crappy job of letting the public know what it was doing,” Stern said. “We were in the business of doing, not bragging about our results.
“But it’s become necessary because of what I believe is bogus litigation,” Stern continued. “We have to let the public know what’s going on and, as well, let the various members of environmental organizations know what their leadership is doing to harm our environmental effort.”
Much of what Stern referred to as “bogus litigation” has come from the Santa Monica Baykeeper, which currently has three lawsuits pending against the city, all involving water quality issues. One of the lawsuits is regarding the Legacy Park project, which the city claims will significantly decrease pollution of the Malibu watershed. Baykeeper, however, says the project is doing much less than it should because, among other issues, it does not address wastewater pollution and only focuses on storm water treatment.
Baykeeper Executive Director Tom Ford said last week that the city should be focusing its spending on its water quality issues, rather than paying money for a public relations firm.
“Throughout our efforts to educate and inform the city regarding the pollution issues that we continue to assert the city needs to deal with, we are told that the city has very scant resources, that they are poor,” Ford said. “And I’m curious how the mayor would justify spending money on a PR firm when it claims not to have money to fix the problems.”
Ford added, “If the city is really doing everything they claim they are doing, they don’t need a PR firm.”
Upon hearing Ford’s comments, Stern re-stated that the Baykeeper is harming the Legacy Park project through its litigation, an effort he said will improve local water quality.
An article in another local publication alleged that there could be a conflict with Hutton’s hiring because the firm has a previous relationship with Woodside Natural Gas and its Oceanway liquefied natural gas proposal, which the city opposed. This proposal eventually was withdrawn. There has been no public opposition to the contract with Hutton because of the Woodside connection. Stern said he did not think it was an issue.
“I’m a lawyer and I’ve had different clients,” Stern said. “I’m not going to judge anybody by their clients. If we selected a firm who only represented people that everyone loved, we’d have to select a very unsuccessful firm with not many clients.”
Laura Mecoy, the Strategic Information Advisor for Hutton, said the firm no longer has a relationship with Woodside, and the LNG proposal has been completely dissolved.
“There’s not even an office anymore,” she said. “None of that exists anymore. We are no longer working for Woodside and have not since