A conflict over an office lease is at the center of two lawsuits involving current and former members of the Marin County Republican Central Committee.
The group works to register Republican voters and promote party candidates. In September, suspended committee members Francis Drouillard and William McLaughlin filed a small claims suit in Marin County Superior Court naming their former organization as a defendant.
Both accuse committee chair John Wilkinson of spending more than $8,700 in committee funds for the first year of a San Rafael office lease without the organization’s authorization in 2017, when he was treasurer, according to the suit. The suit also names former committee chair Kernan Jang as a defendant.
The plaintiffs allege that Wilkinson defrauded the committee and are demanding that he pay it restitution.
“We’re not in it for the money, we want the money returned,” Drouillard said.
Joining them in the suit are former committee member John Turnacliff and former alternate member Ronald Elijah.
McLaughlin said the office lease was brought to their attention after Wilkinson told them at a subcommittee meeting that the central committee was having financial issues in renewing the lease.
Drouillard said that the plaintiffs filed the suit after spending more than a year trying to get documents from committee executives on the lease in question. They did not receive information on the lease until November 2022, he said.
After reviewing the documents, they determined that Wilkinson signed the office lease “without the necessary authority” from the central committee and was therefore responsible for the lease expense under committee bylaws, according to the suit.
McLaughlin, in an interview, alleged that the office space was used as a business address for the central committee’s current vice chair, Tom Montgomery, who now works in political campaign finance services. The lawsuit alleges that Montgomery and the other defendants “hid the lease” from other committee members.
“We tried over a year to get information about this lease,” Drouillard said. “We were insulted, we were obstructed, we were thrown off the committee.”
McLaughlin, Drouillard and Elijah were suspended from the central committee as tension mounted over the disputed office lease.
Montgomery declined to comment. Jonathan Pickett, a lawyer for Wilkinson and Jang, said his clients declined to comment.
In a court hearing Wednesday , Wilkinson said the committee voted to remove the three men because of their behavior at the group’s meetings.
In an interview, Drouillard and McLaughlin accused committee executives of hostility during meetings. They said there was an incident in which executives called the police after they raised points of order.
Drouillard said the committee executives did not want to be held accountable.
“We don’t cause trouble,” Drouillard said.
San Rafael police Sgt. Justin Graham said officers were called to the central committee’s Nov. 30 meeting at the Terra Linda Community Center, where there was a report of “unwanted subjects” disturbing the peace. He said one suspect left before police arrived and another refused to depart. The meeting’s organizers ended the gathering, Graham said.
Police made no arrests, he said.
In response to the suit, Wilkinson and Jang filed their own lawsuit against their accusers. The suit says accusers are not members of the central committee and they had no right to file the small claims suit on behalf of the organization. Wilkinson and Jang want the court to block the defendants from acting on behalf of the central committee.
Wilkinson spoke in his defense during the court hearing on Wednesday, say his accusers were not in the central committee when the office lease was signed. He also said that he never heard complaints from the committee after he signed the document.
“It’s silly to accuse me of fraud,” he told Marin County Superior Court Judge Stephen Freccero. “I got no benefits. The committee got benefits out of the lease.”
The dispute over who can represent the central committee in court arose at the hearing.
“Who has the right to seek restitution?” Freccero asked, noting that there are two lawsuits from different parties that claim to represent the same organization.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility for all registered Republicans in Marin County,” Drouillard said.
Freccero ordered the small claims suit to be consolidated into Wilkinson’s and Jang’s countersuit. A case management conference is set for April 9.
All the litigants are running in March for seats on the Marin County Republican Central Committee. Drouillard is also running for the District 4 seat on the Board of Supervisors.
Source: www.mercurynews.com