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Harteau Comment

Mayor Hodges, Council Members, and Ms. Segal:

I write to encourage the Council to reject the proposed separation settlement agreement between the City and former Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau, based on the inclusion of a mutual non-disparagement clause.

In the relevant section of the proposed agreement, the City is defined to include each Council Member, the Mayor, and all department heads. If the City, including each of you, can never engage in open and honest discussion about “what went wrong,” it jeopardizes learning from our experiences and hinders improvement in municipal policymaking and policing.

Similarly, I think Chief Harteau might have some valuable perspective. If she cannot openly talk about what went happened in City Hall, then Minneapolis residents will be left in the dark and City Hall cannot be pushed to improve and do better.

It's important to note that “non-disparagement” is different from defamation. Making harmful statements that have no basis in truth is already unlawful; this agreement prohibits you and her from making truthful negative statements.

It's bad from a risk management perspective too. If two dozen or so people ever open their mouth and say something negative, the City will, in perpetuity, be exposed to liability through this agreement. Vagueness is also an issue. Given the definition of City includes individual elected officials, I'm unclear as to whether the agreement could be read to give each of them the ability to drag the City into litigation if Chief Harteau says something negative about one of you. Also, the agreement does not define disparagement, nor does it define or limit the remedies available to the parties in case of such disparagement or breach.

I don't have the benefit of knowing which side is pushing for the inclusion of this clause. If it's the City, I sincerely doubt Minneapolis residents would ever want their government using taxpayer money to sue a former appointed official for hurting an elected official's feelings. If it's Harteau, it's reasonable for her to want to move on and make a clean break; that's what settlement agreements are for. But, she was not some low-level employee; she was the Chief of Police. Restricting speech about what the Chief of Police did and does is not good for MPD, it's not good for residents of Minneapolis, and it's not good for democracy.

I request the City Clerk's inclusion of this comment in the record if permissible. I designate this email public pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 13.601, subd. 2.

Thank you, Tony Webster

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