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The city has remained mum about most aspects of the investigation, including what it covered, since late August, when Hayward City Manager Kelly McAdoo abruptly placed Stuart on paid administrative leave and announced that a probe was being launched. McAdoo said in an interview that those details are protected by state public disclosure laws for law enforcement officials and officers. The first letter After David, the former city manager, received the first anonymous letter about a year and a half ago, she and Stuart, along with then-police chief Urban, "put in measures to ensure there was no conflict of interest," Stuart recalled.
The husband of former Hayward Police Chief Diane Stuart, who abruptly retired Wednesday, is speaking out against the city's nearly five-month personnel investigation of his wife and failure to quell inaccurate speculations about the couple and his businesses that arose.
Stuart's husband, Clark D. Stuart II, said in an interview with the Daily Review that he, his wife and his businesses have not done anything wrong, even when he was a contractor with the city for a few years, Diane Stuart was the city's police chief and they were not married yet.
"I'm appalled by the stuff that's going on with the city of Hayward; it's ridiculous," Stuart said.
"They have overreacted to an anonymous letter, they've made terrible decisions on how they've chosen to handle it and now they're doing damage control and crisis management ... which is why they're not responding to PRA (public records act) requests," he said.
The city has remained mum about most aspects of the investigation, including what it covered, since late August, when Hayward City Manager Kelly McAdoo abruptly placed Stuart on paid administrative leave and announced that a probe was being launched.
That silence, however, did little to inhibit the number of media inquiries, public records requests and speculative media reports in the months that followed, including allegations outlined in an anonymous, unsigned letter sent in either 2014 or 2015 to the Daily Review, Oakland Tribune, former City Manager Fran David and Mayor Barbara Halliday that accused Clark D. Stuart II and then-Diane Urban of "trading favors," while they were either dating or engaged and he was a city contractor.
"We've conducted the investigation against the chief with great care and we've been respectful of her privacy rights and her rights as an employee of the organization, so we've refrained from public comment and speculation because we wanted to have a fair and impartial investigation, so it's unfortunate that he made some of those comments," McAdoo said of Clark D. Stuart II's allegations in an interview Tuesday.
The investigation took a sudden turn the next day, when Diane Stuart and McAdoo said in joint statement that the chief would be retiring immediately.
The statement acknowledged for the first time that the investigation was launched after an anonymous letter was mailed to the city "regarding the chief's administration of the police department," but did not divulge when the investigation ended, what it pertained to, what the letter contained specifically and the investigation's outcome.
McAdoo said in an interview that those details are protected by state public disclosure laws for law enforcement officials and officers.
Still, Clark D. Stuart II said, city leaders could have released certain records, including email correspondences, that he and Diane Stuart authorized them to release several weeks ago. Had the city done that, "many of the issues about which the media continues to speculate would have been put to rest," Stuart said.
"I am profoundly disappointed in how the city of Hayward has chosen to deal with the letter and the allegations," Clark D. Stuart II wrote in an email Monday to the Daily Review.
"While I may understand to some degree why the city felt obligated to conduct an investigation, even though the allegations were made anonymously, the matter has dragged on for over three months. The investigation turned into a witch hunt, during which time the city manager has chosen to unnecessarily remain silent and unresponsive and continues to allow the community and media to speculate on possible and potential wrongdoings of both Chief Stuart and I, most all of which are inaccurate and slanderous," he wrote.
The first letter
After David, the former city manager, received the first anonymous letter about a year and a half ago, she and Stuart, along with then-police chief Urban, "put in measures to ensure there was no conflict of interest," Stuart recalled.
At the time, he and then-police Chief Urban were dating and Stuart was employed as a city contractor through Global Trident II. He founded the company in 2010 to help the Stop Child Trafficking Now nonprofit conduct surveys and provide sexual exploitation information to communities and law enforcement agencies worldwide through a digital database and hard-copy reports. Other cities he worked with include Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Indianapolis.
That company's activities were ended a few years later after his contracted work with Stop Child Trafficking Now was complete.
Stuart, a retired Navy SEAL, said he married Diane Stuart earlier this year.
"We all sat around and discussed this to make sure we were ... not doing anything that is going to have any conflict of interest in any way," he recalled.
"They actually separated chains of commands -- there's a whole list of things that were done to ensure there was no conflict of interest -- so the innuendo that this is what it (the investigation) is all about is hogwash," he said.
Clark D. Stuart II's other company, Trident Professionals, later provided leadership and communications training courses for city department heads beginning in 2013. That company, he said, was established in 2003 and serves as his primary job. Stuart established it shortly before he retired as a Navy SEAL in 2003 and long before his relationship with Stuart began.
He also has led courses for law enforcement officers statewide since 2013, when he became certified by the Police Officer Standard and Training agency as a leadership and communication instructor.
Contact Darin Moriki at 510-293-2480 or follow him at Twitter.com/darinmoriki.
Credit: Darin Moriki, STAFF WRITER
Caption: PHOTO: Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group Hayward Police Chief Diane Stuart retired earlier this week.
Copyright Bay Area News Group Dec 16, 2016