Sunday, June 1, 2003 Morris: City laughed at pretrial offer   By Tom Hennessy Staff columnist John Morris, the Pine Avenue restaurateur who won a suit against the city of Long Beach last month, says he made a pretrial offer to settle for less than half of what a jury eventually awarded him. By accepting the offer, Morris said, the city might have saved about $200,000. "But the city's people laughed at the offer," he says. The jury awarded Morris $425,000 in compensatory damages. However, City Attorney Robert Shannon tells a different story, even employing different math. According to Shannon, Morris proposed a settlement that would have forgiven a loan made to him by the city's Redevelopment Agency. Shannon contends that forgiveness of the debt was the real motivation behind the Morris suit, and that it had nothing to do with his alleged "hatred" of former City Manager Henry Taboada. With interest, says Shannon, "the loan at one point came to about $600,000," but was renegotiated down to about $250,000. Shannon says Morris is paying about $2,000 a month on it. Morris, however, puts the figure at $2,500 a month. "About 60 days before the trial started," says Morris, "we had what was called a mandatory offer hearing. There was an offer made by us to the city, but they laughed it off. They actually laughed at us... As far as I know, they never told the City Council about the offer we made. But Shannon says it was an offer he had to refuse. "I have to protect the taxpayers" money, and the deal (renegotiation of the loan) was one to which Morris had agreed and which the City Council had blessed." Asked if he plans to appeal the verdict, Shannon said, "That's a decision the City Council has to make. We will be filing post-trial motions. We made some of those motions before the jury went out, and the court deferred judgment on them." The city attorney declined to say what recommendation he will make to the council. Meanwhile, in an interview this past week, Morris, owner of Mum's restaurant on Pine Avenue, said his trial victory was a vindication of his differences with the city. Morris has alleged he had been harassed and his business victimized by Taboada and other city officials because of his criticisms of City Hall policies. Morris arrived for the interview bearing an envelope which, he said, had been left at Mum's after the trial. A message inside read, "I do not forget good deeds. No decent man should go through what you did. Please accept this gift as a sign of sincere support." Attached was a check for $100. Morris cannot remember having met the man whose name appears on the check, which he says he will turn over to the Boys & Girls Club of Long Beach. Things like that have been happening since the trial verdict, he says. In fact, during our interview, which took place at a Starbucks, a waitress Morris does not know congratulated him on the outcome. The interview went like this: Q. Do you think the verdict will be appealed by the city? A. If Bob Shannon has his way, it will be. Shannon is a litigator. That's his background. And he hates to lose. But if it were left to the people, I don't think there would be an appeal. As for me, I just want to get the thing resolved. But I think Shannon has his own agenda. Q. How do you think Jerry Miller, the new city manager, feels about appealing the verdict? A. I have the utmost respect for Jerry Miller. He'll make the decision he thinks is best and talk to the City Council. All it takes is five votes. Do they want to keep dragging this out? If so, I'm along for the ride. I've made my decision. If they want to appeal, that's fine. I'll ride it out. It's going to cost them more in attorney fees. Q. Do you plan to be in contact with City Hall? A. Yes. I'm meeting with Miller Monday. I called him and said I didn't want to talk about the lawsuit, but I do want to discuss issues regarding Pine Avenue, which is what I've been trying to do for six months." Q. How have city officials reacted to the verdict? A. I really don't know. I have not had one phone call from a city person since the trial ended. Q. Have you ever met one-on-one with former city manager Henry Taboada? A. Yes, we had a meeting to discuss my loan from the Redevelopment Agency. Q. Didn't the loan come up for discussion during the trial? A. Yes, the amount of the loan was $250,000. But the city had kept saying it was $300,000. I don't know how they came up with that figure. They kept using it during the trial. Q. How has the public reacted to the verdict? A. It's been incredible, starting with the Jewels of the Night fund-raiser at the Pyramid. That was the same day as what I now think of as "Tear-jerker Morning." (He is referring to the P-T's front page on Saturday, May 17. It showed a tear running down his cheek as the verdict in his favor was delivered the previous day.) I was handing out food at Jewels of the Night. I'd hand out food, and shake someone's hand, hand out food, and shake someone else's hand. I was overwhelmed by the responses. It was a very emotional evening in terms of the joy being expressed by so many people. And not just people I know. Q. Why did you file the suit? A. I had to do it. I had to have my day in court. It was never a David-and-Goliath thing. It was never about money. The jury came up with the money number. We never even asked for a number. Q. Would you say there was a message for small-business owners in the trial's outcome? A. Well, I think it had meaning for anybody who has done business in Long Beach and who has experienced a lot of the things I experienced with City Hall. Q. What are your immediate plans? A. To get back to work. This is not a thing to sit back and gloat over. I have a business to run. People ask if I'm enjoying this. Actually, I'm just enjoying getting back to life. I enjoy everything about life, and right now, I just to get back to work. Q. Has the trial had an impact on Pine Avenue merchants? A. I think for the first time that Pine Avenue is very united. Q. Were you surprised by the verdict? A. As the trial went on, I thought it was going to be very tough. There were so many objections by the city. On one day, there were, I think, 40 objections, and the city won the rulings in 38 of them. Also, you start putting yourself in the jury's seat after a while. You hear a statement that you know is not true, but you think, "Yeah, that's going to sound good to the jury." Q. You must have been pleased with your attorney, James Rainboldt. A. He was just awesome. He believed in me 100 percent. Q. Aside from the verdict, what was the most memorable aspect of the trial to you? A. I guess it was when I took the stand for three hours on the first day. I talked about the history of Mum's and the history of my dealing with the city. There were many times during that when I just choked up. Q. Has the trial left you feeling different? A. You know, people laugh when I tell them this, but I had a weird body experience; all my aches and pains just evaporated, just disappeared, the morning the trial started. I knew I was having my day and getting my say. And the city could no longer marginalize what I had to say. Q. You have said the city hurt you and other Pine Avenue businesses by not providing a link between them and the Queensway Bay - or Pike - project. Elaborate. A. Ironically, this had come up before in a different way. When Disney wanted to come to town, one of the major concerns of the city was that having Disney on the waterfront would decimate businesses north of Ocean Boulevard. The argument against Disney was that it would hurt. But when it came to Queensway Bay, the thought process was reversed. They were saying it wouldn't hurt business north of Ocean Boulevard. And that simply isn't true. Q. If you could change one thing in Long Beach, what would it be? A. I just wish there was a gene, an implant or something, that could be put into government workers and make them more appreciative of what businesses go through. You know, business people, unlike government workers, don't have an automatic paycheck every two weeks. Q. How could government workers do better? A. They could do a better job of listening to the public. They have a tendency not to listen, except to a very select group of people. Q. How has your wife, Judy, reacted to the trial? A. She's very relieved that it's over, and so happy that we were vindicated. She knew what I went through. She lived it.   Tom Hennessy's viewpoint appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He can be reached at (562) 499-1270 or by e-mail at Scribe17@aol.com