In-House City Attorney’s Offices in Southern California
August 29, 2011 Leave a comment
By Michael Reiter, Attorney at Law
I was recently speaking to an investigative journalist about in-house versus contract City Attorneys. The journalist asked me if there were a list of in-house City Attorney’s Offices in California. Upon review, there does not appear to be a list, though the League of California Cities does keep a list of all City/Town Attorneys in California. So, I created a list of in-house City Attorney’s Offices in Southern California:
| City Name | Pop. (2011 est.) | City Form | Full Service | Elected/Appointed | Name of City Attorney | Tenure | # Attorneys | 2011-’12 Budget | Prosecute State Law Misdemeanors? |
| San Bernardino County | |||||||||
| San Bernardino | 211,076 | Charter | Yes | Elected | James F. Penman | 1987 | 10 | $3,026,000* | No |
| Redlands | 69,231 | General Law | Yes | Appointed | Daniel J. McHugh | 1994 | 1 | $429,237* | No |
| Riverside County | |||||||||
| Moreno Valley | 195,216 | General Law | No | Appointed | Robert Hansen | 2010 | 3 | $910,535* | No |
| Riverside | 306,779 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Gregory Priamos | 2001 | 14 | $3,451,041 | No |
| Los Angeles County | |||||||||
| Burbank | 104,304 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Dennis Barlow | 1997 | 11 | $3,614,447 | Yes |
| Compton | 96,925 | Charter | No | Elected | Craig J. Cornwell | 2008 | 4 | Not Online | No |
| Culver City | 38,973 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Carol Schwab | 1997 | 4 | $1,779,809 | No |
| Glendale | 192,473 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Scott H. Howard | 1990 | 13 | $3720156* | No |
| Hawthorne | 84,854 | General Law | No | Appointed | Russell I. Miyahira | 2009 | 3.6** | $551,447 | Yes |
| Inglewood | 110,028 | Charter | No | Appointed | Cal P. Saunders | 2006 | 10** | $2,342,133** | Yes |
| Long Beach | 463,894 | Charter | Yes | Elected | Robert E. Shannon | 1998 | 22 | $8,585,107 | No |
| Long Beach City Prosecutor | Included Above | Charter | Yes | Elected | Doug Haubert | 2010 | 17 | $4,824,978* | Yes |
| Los Angeles | 3,810,129 | Charter | Yes | Elected | Carmen Trutanich | 2009 | 444 | $94,950,894* | Yes |
| Palmdale | 153,334 | Charter | No | Appointed | Wm. Matthew Ditzhazy | 1994 | 2 | $3,988,760 | No |
| Pasadena | 138,915 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Michele Beal Bagneris | 1997 | 20 | $6,467,000* | Yes |
| Redondo Beach | 66,970 | Charter | Yes | Elected | Michael W. Webb | 2005 | 6 | $2,496,915* | Yes |
| Santa Monica | 90,174 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Marsha Jones Moutrie | 1993 | 24.5 | $8,672331* | Yes |
| Torrance | 145,927 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | John L. Fellowes III | 1993 | 6 | $2,160,322* | Yes |
| Orange | |||||||||
| Anaheim | 341,034 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Cristina Talley | 2009 | 23 | $5,592,143 | Yes |
| Huntington Beach | 190,377 | Charter | Yes | Elected | Jennifer McGrath | 2002 | 7 | $2,311,624* | Some |
| Newport Beach | 85,376 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | David R. Hunt | 2008 | 5.7 | $2,298,563.87*** | No |
| Orange | 136,995 | General Law | Yes | Appointed | David A. DeBerry | 4 | $1,411,049* | No | |
| Santa Ana | 325,228 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Joe Straka | 2011 | 8.5 | $2,081,395* | No |
| Ventura County | |||||||||
| Oxnard | 199,722 | General Law | Yes | Appointed | Alan Holmberg | 2008 | 5 | $1,336,917* | No |
| Simi Valley | 125,026 | General Law | No | Appointed | Tracy M. Noonan | 2009 | 4 | $983,400* | No |
| Thousand Oaks | 127,557 | General Law | No | Appointed | Amy Albano | 4 | $1,564,032* | No | |
| Ventura | 107,124 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Ariel P. Calonne | 2007 | 4 | $1,711,112 | No |
| San Diego County | |||||||||
| Carlsbad | 106,555 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Ronald R. Ball | 4 | $1,336,460* | No | |
| Chula Vista | 246,496 | Charter | Yes | Elected | Glen R. Googins | 2010 | 8 | $2,271,182 | No |
| Escondido | 145,196 | General Law | Yes | Appointed | Jeffrey R. Epp | 1996 | 7 | $1,873,925 | No |
| National City | 58,785 | General Law | Yes | Appointed | Claudia Silva | 2010 | 2.5 | $703,760 | No |
| Oceanside | 168,173 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | John P. Mullen | 2006 | 6 | $1,535,860 | No |
| San Diego | 1,311,882 | Charter | Yes | Elected | Jan Goldsmith | 2008 | 147 | $42,442,992* | Yes |
| Vista | 94,431 | Charter | No | Appointed | Darold Pieper | 2005 | 3 | $1,011,603 | No |
| Imperial | |||||||||
| El Centro | 43,145 | Charter | Yes | Appointed | Luis F. Hernandez | 2008 | 3** | $588,772** | No |
| * 2011-2012 Proposed | |||||||||
| ** 2010-2011 Adopted | |||||||||
| *** Includes Outside Counsel budget | |||||||||
I define Southern California in this case as Imperial, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.
It can be difficult to directly compare cities and City Attorney’s Offices directly. The difficulty is that different cities use different accounting. For example, Newport Beach places the outside counsel directly in its budget. Some cities use a Risk Management/liability account to pay for outside counsel. Other differences are whether the city prosecutes State law misdemeanors, which increases the size of the budget and the number of attorneys. One City offset the budget with internal fund transfers. I just added them together to get the budgeted amount. Long Beach has both an elected City Attorney and an elected City Prosecutor, which I have listed separately. The population figures are the January 2011 estimates from the California Department of Finance. There are a variety of definitions of “full service.” For the purposes of this list, I define “full service” as having both a Fire Department and a Police Department.
I tried to use equivalent data. However, some cities have not adopted 2011-2012 budgets, so I used the proposed budget if available, and the 2010-2011 Adopted budget if neither the FY 12 adopted or proposed budget was available online. Also, some full service cities are more full service than others. For example, Redlands has both an airport and a landfill, while San Bernardino has neither, but San Bernardino is about three times as big as Redlands in population. Some full service cities do not have any utilities, while others have solid waste, water and electricity. The coastal cities have harbors and have to deal with the Coastal Commission. As far as complexity, I would imagine that the City and County of San Francisco as a the only Charter City and County in California, as well as having its own transit system, would be the most complex City in the State.
The data came mostly from the City’s website. Sometimes, the number of attorneys comes from the City Attorney’s website, sometimes from the adopted or proposed budget, sometimes from the State Bar’s website (though it is more difficult to do than in the past), and the State Controller’s compensation website. The determination whether the City is a Charter or General Law City comes from the list maintained by the League of California Cities. The names of City Attorneys comes from an August 2011 list from the City Attorney’s division of the League of California Cities, and checked against the internet. The year the City Attorneys were appointed or elected came from a variety of internet sources, such as newspaper archives, Google, or the City’s website. I couldn’t find two. I counted from the initial appointment (including interim appointments). I derived the data about which cities have in-house City Attorney’s Offices from Google searches cross-checked against the League’s list of City Attorneys.
The information you obtain at this blog is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is established by reading or commenting on this blog. You should consult an attorney for advice regarding your individual situation.
About Michael Reiter, Attorney at Law
Michael Reiter, Municipal Attorney with Milligan, Attorney, Beswick, Levine & Knox LLP Blog 