DOVER ‒ A councilman raised questions Monday about a media report involving a deposition given by Law Director Doug O'Meara in the Dover Chemical Corp. lawsuit.

"Did any of you know about this before it hit the paper, Dover Chemical depositioning and the fiasco that followed?" Bob Mueller asked his fellow council members. "I for one was quite surprised that it took so long to find out about this. I had to read it in the paper, instead of hearing it from the administration. I don't think that's right."

More on deposition: 'Evasiveness, gamesmanship and eavesdropping': Dover Chemical seeks sanctions against city

His question was in reference to an article that appeared in The Times-Reporter last week about a request by Dover Chemical that Judge Elizabeth Lehigh Thomakos sanction the city for allegedly failing to produce key documents in the company's lawsuit against the city and over O'Meara's conduct during a recent deposition in the case.

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Legal dispute began in 2021

The motion is part of the legal dispute between the city and the company over services provided by Dover Light & Power to the manufacturer. The suit was filed in February 2021.

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The company claims the city failed to produce a letter from O'Meara to council members in 2020 in which he said that employees of the Electric Field Division had been maintaining and upgrading the lines and equipment inside the plant, in violation of an ordinance passed by council in 1975.

In its motion, Dover Chemical said it asked for a copy of O'Meara's letter but did not receive it because of attorney-client privilege. However, the same letter was quoted in an article in The T-R on Sept. 10, 2020. Dover Chemical eventually received a copy of the letter on June 30 of this year.

The company is also alleging that O'Meara derailed Dover Chemical's first attempt to depose him in the case on June 30 "with his evasiveness, gamesmanship and eavesdropping on DCC's counsel."

The motion says that during the deposition, O'Meara spent nine minutes and 16 seconds examining the letter he sent to city council in 2020 before acknowledging that he was familiar with it. The motion also alleges that the law director had been surreptitiously recording the deposition and left his telephone recording in the presence of Dover Chemical's lawyers when he and the city's attorneys left the room.

"This administration talks about transparency, yet we don't tell people stuff," Mueller said at Monday's meeting. "Only certain people know. We don't communicate, and I don't think that's where Dover needs to go."

Council members say they learned of deposition from report

During the audience portion of the council meeting, resident Brian Hanner asked every other member of council how they had learned about O'Meara's deposition. Nearly all of them said they had learned from reading about it in the paper.

"So, this legislative body is just as surprised that this happened 45 days ago and they're just learning about it from the newspaper," Hanner said.

At the end of the meeting, members of council and the administration met in executive session with attorney Dolores "Lola" Garcia of the law firm of Ulmer & Berne, which is representing the city in the lawsuit, to discuss pending litigation. No action was taken following the session.

On Tuesday, Mayor Shane Gunnoe issued a statement in response to Mueller's questions.

"During my time as mayor of the City of Dover, I have worked to make city government more transparent and accountable. City administration has routinely requested executive sessions with city council to discuss matters of pending litigation. This is the appropriate format for pending litigation matters to protect the city's confidential and privileged legal communications.

"Mr. Mueller was aware days in advance of last night's meeting that city administration wished to request an executive session to discuss pending litigation matters that night with city council.

"City administration will continue to work cooperatively with city council on all matters and will request executive sessions with council for pending litigation as needed in the future.

"In regard to the Dover Chemical lawsuit, the city will continue to work to defend our utility ratepayers and will submit our response to the latest court filings in the near future."

Reach Jon at 330-364-8415 or at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Questions raised at Dover Council about law director's deposition