Link to “Giacobbe” invoices approved by the Lodi Board
of Education in December:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SlAcb3biERqDj1BbJjShrytuSPcEUxDU/view?usp=sharing
Link to “Giacobbe” invoices approved by the Lodi Mayor
and Council in December:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-C5dY3DSD60AgT2kMbBH65696I13uqQn/view?usp=sharing
Matthew Giacobbe is being paid with Lodi tax dollars. Matthew Giacobbe is redacting almost every
subject line, so the public is not able to see what he is supposedly working on and
how much he over bills for any specific item.
Giacobbe is citing “attorney-client privilege” as an exemption for
almost everything. I had been OPRA-ing
legal invoices for the past decade and received invoices from at least five
different firms. No other firm had done
what Giacobbe had done. There usually are
no redactions being invoices are public records and attorneys anticipate that
they can be OPRA-ed and should be drawn up accordingly.
Lodi is allowing “Giacobbe” to rip off the taxpayers without
any oversight or accountability. Lodi is
allowing “Giacobbe” to redact its own invoices.
Lodi is allowing “Giacobbe” to use “attorney-client privilege” to redact
public items and public information that have nothing to do with “attorney-client
privilege”. This is an abuse. This is the recipe for theft and misappropriation
of public funds. This is an intentional violation
of the Open Public Records Act.
In 2017, I called out past Board Attorney Tony
Sciarrillo for illegal billing and for lying about it. Sciarrillo was forced to reimburse the district
thousands of dollars. During the ordeal,
Sciarrillo stated at a meeting and on tape that attorney invoices are public
records and firms must draw up a set of invoices in anticipation that a member
of the public files an Open Public Records request.
Past Board attorneys may have initialed names appearing on invoices. They never made redactions throughout invoices by citing “attorney-client privilege”.
“Giacobbe” is a dishonest firm that over bills for
inferior legal services. It’s in Giacobbe’s
interest to redact all of their invoices.
The blame for OPRA violations lies with others. Lodi’s interim Business Administrator, Michael
Rinderknecht, is the custodian of records.
He has prior experience in other districts as business administrator. He has to be aware of what can and cannot be
exempt under OPRA and that exemptions should be as specific as possible and not
as broad and general as “attorney-client privilege” for everything. Instead of doing his job, he delegated his duty
to the firm whose invoices are at issue and in question.
The blame lies with Lodi Board of Education members
and members of the Lodi mayor and council that approve Giacobbe’s bills without
ever reviewing them. Elected officials
can either be advocates for transparency or opponents. Many took campaign contributions from “Giacobbe”
and in turn allow the firm to rip off Lodi in the dark.
Reminder: the over redacted legal invoices are not the
only blatant OPRA violations by the Lodi Board of Education since the
installment of “Giacobbe” and allowing “Giacobbe” to oversee Lodi’s OPRA process. They illegally redacted the recommendations
on public audits. They illegally
redacted public settlement agreements.
They withheld public hearing submissions during COVID that were submitted
electronically and readily available.
They redacted Nancy Cardone’s emails that didn’t contain confidential information.
