The closed session hearing lasted nearly 90 minutes, delaying the start of the regular council meeting, but the council emerged with essentially nothing to report.
“This was an informal review to capture some of the comments of outgoing council members, in particular Councilwoman Barth,” Mayor Kristin Gaspar said in her brief report. “We provided feedback to the city manager and city attorney.”
Typically, the council evaluates the performance of and Sabine on a semi-annual basis, and an evaluation was expected at the start of 2015.
But the council in September, following a meeting in which Vina surprised them when he revealed that the price for financing the Pacific View site would be higher than originally anticipated, voted to schedule a post-election meeting to meet behind closed doors to discuss the duo.
The council will still host its regularly scheduled performance review in January.
On the campaign trail, several candidates for mayor and council publicly criticized both Vina and Sabine’s job performances, including two candidates — mayoral candidates Sheila Cameron and Alex Fidel — who said the pair should be fired, and a third, council candidate Julie Graboi, who said she was “starting to agree with that opinion.”
Several community members have criticized Sabine for what they believe is an indiscriminate handling of city litigation, which in some cases has cost the city thousands of dollars. Critics of Vina believe he has recommended questionable spending on additional staff and has mishandled a number of the council’s requests.
