Carmel City Council Discusses $100,000 Settlement Payment To Libman

Carmel city council members had an interesting exchange with interim Performing Arts Center CEO Frank Basile at Monday night's council meeting concerning the $100,000 settlement the City of Carmel paid to its former CEO Steven Libman after he abruptly resigned his position. Carmel Mayor James Brainard had authorized a private investigator to investigate Libman's relationship with a female employee he supervised. Basile explains to council members that the Performing Arts Center rejected two requests by the Carmel Redevelopment Commission to pay the $100,000 settlement Mayor Brainard had agreed to pay to Libman to avoid a lawsuit over the invasion of his privacy. Basile notes that the second request came as a condition of the Center receiving a payment the city had agreed to pay to the center to support its operations, but he declined the demand as he did the earlier request, at which point the City released the money to the Center without further conditions. Basile explained that it was his organization's position that Libman's claim was against the City of Carmel and not the Center, and that it should not be liable for payment of the settlement the City had agreed to pay Libman through a mediated settlement. Similarly, the Center refused to pay the bill of International Investigators hired by Mayor Brainard. Basile told the council that to the best of his knowledge there were no other requests that the Center make payments on behalf of the City that it felt it was not legally obligated to pay.