Gary Cloutier

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gary Cloutier is a politician elected mayor of Vallejo, California on November 21, 2007, sworn in on December 4, 2007, but replaced by Osby Davis on December 8, 2007. His opponent, real estate attorney Osby Davis, requested a recount that showed Davis had won the election by fewer than five votes. However, on December 8, 2007, Cloutier said he would be taking legal steps "soon" to challenge the recount.[1] Both candidates represent a first for Vallejo: Cloutier would be the first openly gay mayor of Vallejo, whereas Davis would be its first African-American mayor.

Gary Cloutier is the former law partner of the late pioneering gay civil rights lawyer, Paul Wotman, who obtained the largest gay discrimination verdict ever against the Shell Oil Company in 1991. Wotman and Cloutier were among the first lawyers in the State of California to make new law under the Americans with Disabilities Act for same- and opposite-sex couples who had been discriminated against due to the HIV status of one partner in seeking life insurance.

In one of the first refusal to treat cases to go to trial since the United States Supreme Court ruled that people with asymptomatic HIV are protected by disability law, he won a significant verdict against a University of California surgeon who refused to operate on an HIV positive patient with avascular necrosis.

In the more recent San Francisco Superior Court case of Gohstand v. Leibert, he obtained a large and highly publicized settlement in behalf of a straight man who was beaten outside a gay bar by two students from UC Berkeley who believed the victim was gay.

Cloutier grew up in Rhode Island and received a BA in Political Science from Brown University where he was an all-Ivy defensive tackle and the winner of the Eugene Swift award, and a law degree, from Suffolk Law School.^[1] He is a former staff member to Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-RI), and he served on the Vallejo City Council for eight years.

[edit] Arrest for Public Drunkenness

Just days after his win of the election for mayor, Cloutier was arrested for public drunkenness as he sat in the driver's seat of his Cadillac in the early morning hours of November 18, 2007 in Palm Springs outside a gay bar.

He spent five hours in jail and was released. At a press conference outside Vallejo City Hall, Cloutier said he "...Made a mistake that I deeply regret... I had too much to drink...[and] I make no excuses, and I accept full responsibility for my actions. I have embarrassed myself, concerned my colleagues and disappointed my supporters. I deeply regret my actions, and apologize to the people I've let down, especially those who have worked so hard on my campaign." Cloutier also said it would never happen again.[2]

He was sworn into office November 21, 2007.