Arturo Castañares
Publisher
The San Diego Unified Port District spent over $400,000 in 2023 to investigate its CEO, then paid him and his lawyers over $410,000 to go away, yet the Port still refuses to tell the public why they spent so much taxpayer money to remove their leader.
Joe Stuyvesant was the Port’s CEO from December 2021 to January 2024, when he resigned after having been put on administrative leave for six months during an internal investigation.
The Board of Port Commissioners —made up of seven appointed representatives from the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista, Coronado, Imperial Beach, and National City— has never explained why they launched an investigation into their own CEO, or why they thought it was a good use of taxpayer money to pay him one year’s salary to leave.
Stuyvesant, a former US Navy pilot and experienced manager, was not charged with any wrongdoing, but he also wasn’t allowed to return to work.
Last year, La Prensa San Diego filed requests with the Port under the California Public Records Act for documents related to Stuyvesant’s dismissal, but the Port claimed all related documents were shielded from disclosure under the attorney-client privilege or the attorney work-product doctrine.
They claimed their outside lawyer’s investigative memorandum was protected from disclosure —a reasonable argument— but also that all documents she reviewed during her investigation became privileged by virtue of being cited in her memorandum, including documents that were not privileged on their own, like minutes of public meetings and emails from Stuyvesant —an unreasonable argument.
We sued to force the disclosure of non-privileged records. After a multi-day bench trial, a local Superior Court judge ruled that most of the reviewed documents, along with the outside lawyer’s interview questions with Stuyvesant and his answers, had to be released.
The Port immediately appealed the judge’s ruling, fighting to keep any of the records from being released. Although the California Court of Appeal first rejected the Port’s appeal, the Port petitioned the California Supreme Court, which in turn ordered the appellate court to take a closer look. The appellate hearing will take place sometime later this year.
We think appellate review is a good thing because too many public agencies have been using outside lawyers to shield disclosure of investigations into top managers, using taxpayer dollars to hide misconduct, and an appellate ruling would provide clear legal guidance.
In the meantime, LPSD filed another lawsuit against the Port because they have failed to provide other documents we requested, stalling in hopes the case will drag on longer than we’re willing to fight.
The Port has blocked every attempt we’ve made to access public records that could shed light on why they spent over $800,000 to remove their CEO.
Then, in the last few months, sources have informed LPSD that encrypted text messages that implicate Stuyvesant in serious wrongdoing were recovered during the investigation, but that the Port covered up the misdeeds and, instead, paid him to go away quietly to avoid a public scandal.
We have not independently verified that such text messages exist, but we have been stymied in every attempt to try to confirm their existence.
According to our sources, an outside tech company was used to search communications devices for information about Stuyvesant’s activities and recovered troubling messages from at least one device. San Diego-based Cybergeist has a contract with the Port that was executed in October 2023, during the time Stuyvesant was on administrative leave. The contract allows for work up to $125,000 to be completed under specific Task Authorizations issued by the Port, but neither the Port nor Cybergeist provided the documents we requested.
Cybergeist’s owner is Robert Renzulli, a cybersecurity and computer expert who previously served as the Port’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) from October 2017 to September 2020. While at the Port, Renzulli helped respond to a ransomware attack by two Iranian men who remotely locked down the Port’s computer systems in 2018 and demanded cryptocurrency payment.
We subpoenaed Renzulli to testify under oath in a legal deposition, but a major law firm representing Cybergeist objected to making him available to provide testimony in person and refused to let him answer written questions or make any other statement under oath.
Last week, we emailed Renzulli and asked what work his company had done for the Port, but he did not respond to the request.
Another company contracted by the Port, Amergent Techs, Inc., based in Orange County, also filed an opposition to our subpoena to testify under oath.
This week, we reached out to Stuyvesant to give him an opportunity to comment, but he never returned the call. His lawyer who negotiated his departure, Dick Semerdjian, also did not respond to a request for comment. Semerdjian was reimbursed $40,000 by the Port for his work in negotiating Stuyvesant's buyout.
In August, Port Commissioner Frank Urtazan, who was the Board's Chairman when Stuyvesant was let go, committed to return my call the next morning, but never did.
At the time of Stuyvesant's departure, Urtanzan gave the Port’s official comment: "We thank Joe Stuyvesant for his service to the Port of San Diego. We wish him well in his future endeavors." Not really a ringing endorsement of your CEO on his way out the door.
The Port has blocked every attempt we’ve made to access public records related to Stuyvesant’s buyout, instead using taxpayer dollars to pay lawyers and using legal tactics to keep information from the public.
The San Diego Unified Port District was created by the California State Legislature in 1962 to manage the state-owned tidelands along San Diego Bay and the coast of Imperial Beach, which includes lucrative land leases for hotels, restaurants, and shops, and the San Diego Convention Center.
The Port's Board of non-elected, virtually unknown Commissioners controls an annual budget with over $350 million in revenues generated from publicly owned land —aka taxpayer dollars— yet they operate mostly in secret behind closed doors with very little public scrutiny.
The decision to part ways with —fire— Stuyvesant and spend over $800,000 in the process affects taxpayers, yet the Port is hiding all related documents and information from the public who actually paid for it all.
Either he did something wrong that merited firing (so then why did they pay him off?) or he did nothing wrong (so then why did he leave?). Either way, the public is entitled to answers.
A $400,000 investigation to find nothing seems expensive, but then again, a scandal would be even more costly.
Our work to enforce transparency and accountability is for the public good, not our own. Public agencies and their leaders should be held to account for the public dollars they are entrusted to manage.
The Port District has failed to be transparent and accountable to the public, and even now the public doesn’t know the half of it.
