UPDATE: The Rag has updated the video links on this post to separate them individually because some readers experienced problems playing all five videos as a playlist.

On Wednesday, November 25, the Fullerton City Council met at 8:00 a.m. for a Special Meeting to announce a settlement in the civil lawsuit brought by Ron Thomas, father of schizophrenic Kelly Thomas, beaten into brain death by members of the Fullerton Police Department four and half years ago. The council had already met in a closed session meeting two days earlier on Monday, November 23 to decide whether or not to settle the case, scheduled to begin that very morning in a Santa Ana courtroom. Council members Jan Flory, Doug Chaffee, and Mayor Pro Tem Jennifer Fitzgerald voted in favor of the settlement, while Mayor Greg Sebourn and Council member Bruce Whitaker voted against it.

Although video of the November 23 meeting is available on the city’s website, along with other archived videos of past meetings, no such video can be found there of the Nov. 25 meeting. CORRECTION: The November 23 meeting was not recorded either, even though several members of the public offered comments prior to the council retreating into Closed Session. When pressed for an answer about the video’s absence by Parks and Recreation Commissioner Barry Levinson during public comments at the regularly scheduled December 1 City Council meeting, City Clerk Lucinda Williams responded that the city’s contract only covered regular meetings, and that a special call needed to have been made to arrange for the video recording of special meetings, and that that call had not been made ahead of the November 25 meeting.

The timing of the November 25 meeting was already suspect. Rather than wait until the regularly scheduled December 1 evening meeting, which would be both video recorded and broadcast live, to announce the expensive and embarrassing settlement, a Special Meeting was quickly scheduled early in the morning on a weekday, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday break. There is no logical reason for not video recording the November 25 session, which was a pubic announcement. Although a complete recording of that meeting is not known to exist, the Fullerton Rag does have five videos shot from the audience to preserve parts of the proceedings. Below are the announcement of the settlement by City Attorney Richard Jones, along with explanations by four council members of their respective support or opposition to the decision (Council member Jan Flory was not present for the November 25 meeting). Click the links below to hear remarks by each present member of the Fullerton City Council.

First, City Attorney Richard Jones reads the settlement text..

Mayor Greg Sebourn…

Council member Bruce Whitaker..

Council member Doug Chaffee…

And the customarily perfunctory remarks by Mayor Pro Tem Jennifer Fitzgerald…