To: Honorable Mayor and Members of City Council
From: Heather Ruiz, Human Resources Director
Prepared By: Gabrielle Swanson, Management Analyst II
TITLE:
Title
City Attorney’s Office Staffing Plan Update
LABEL
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Recommendation
1) Approve the first reading and introduction of an ordinance amending Napa Municipal Code Section 2.24.070 regarding the designation of appointive officers in the City Attorney’s Office.
2) Adopt a resolution (a) approving the classification specification, compensation, and benefits for the Legal Assistant position; and (b) amending the budget staffing plan for the City Attorney’s Office by: (i) deleting one Legal Secretary position and adding one Legal Assistant position, (ii) reclassifying and deleting one Deputy City Attorney position, and (iii) adding one Assistant City Attorney position.
Body
DISCUSSION:
Overview:
The budget staffing plan for the City Attorney’s Office currently includes the City Attorney, one Assistant City Attorney, one Deputy City Attorney, one Legal Analyst, and one Legal Secretary (approved by City Council on June 21, 2022, R2022-066). The purpose of this item is to recommend Council approve two updates to the organizational structure of the City Attorney’s Office to include: (1) deleting the Legal Secretary position and replacing it with a Legal Assistant position; and (2) reclassifying the Deputy City Attorney to a second Assistant City Attorney position. Thus, if Council approves the recommended action, the organizational structure of the City Attorney’s Office will be: one City Attorney, two Assistant City Attorneys, one Legal Analyst, and one Legal Assistant.
Background:
The City Attorney’s Office provides sound legal advice and support to City officials while working collaboratively to implement the policies set by City Council. The organizational structure of the City Attorney’s Office is divided into two functional categories of legal services: (a) Litigation: resolving threatened or pending claims or litigation involving the City; and (b) Advisory: providing legal advice to cost-effectively achieve organizational goals while minimizing potential legal risks, which includes the preparation and editing of legal documents such as ordinances, resolutions, contracts, and other public records.
The current Assistant City Attorney is the primary legal advisor and manager of the dispute resolution responsibilities of the City Attorney’s Office including all litigation involving the City. This includes matters filed in court as well as similar legal proceedings before decision-making bodies such as arbitrators or administrative hearing officers; and it includes the defense of claims and litigation filed against the City, as well as advocating the City’s interests in legal proceedings to enforce City policies (e.g., enforcing ordinances, permits, or contracts). This also includes directly representing the City and advising the City’s decision makers through the litigation process, as well as managing other lawyers hired to handle specific matters on behalf of the City. This also includes serving as the City’s lead legal advisor to police and public safety, code enforcement, public records, and human resources.
Reclassification of Deputy City Attorney to Assistant City Attorney:
The current Deputy City Attorney (“DCA”) is the primary legal advisor and manager of advisory services provided by the City Attorney’s Office including issues related to the City’s regulation of private development projects; facilitation of residential and affordable housing projects; provision of parks and recreation and special event services; preparation of contracts and other transactional legal documents needed to construct public projects, obtain goods and services, and convey real property interests; and documentation of City policies (such as ordinances, resolutions, and administrative regulations). This includes serving as the lead legal advisor to most City commissions, directly advising the Planning Commission and the Cultural Heritage Commission, and regularly providing legal support to the staff managers for all other City commissions. This also includes serving as the lead legal advisor to several City staff level decision makers and internal cross-departmental staff teams that facilitate the City’s regulation and conditioning of private development projects and special events.
When the DCA position was initially created in 2008, the position was envisioned and implemented as a single position providing project-level services to cover demand for legal services as they arose. However, over the past several years, the demand for legal service from the organization has dramatically increased within the functional area of the DCA’s responsibilities. This has resulted in the need for the City to hire outside counsel to cover that supplemental demand for legal services, and those supplemental contracted services have been managed by the position held by the DCA. Thus, the need to manage the volume and complexity of the demand for legal services warrants the reclassification of the existing Deputy City Attorney position to the level of an Assistant City Attorney.
The types of projects for which the DCA position has recently been responsible for providing legal services at the level of an Assistant City Attorney, both directly advising City officials and managing services provided by other City lawyers, include: residential and affordable housing projects (e.g., Heritage House & Valley Verde, Valley Lodge, Redwood Grove, Stoddard West, Napa Creek Village, Western Meadows, Napa Valley College Housing, and Wine Train Housing); mixed use projects (Napa Pipe and Stanly Ranch), land use policy documents (e.g., updates to the General Plan and Housing Element, and pending related updates to ordinances and regulations); implementation of land use and permitting policies (e.g., parklets and outdoor dining, BottleRock, Oxbow River Stage, retail cannabis, and wayfinding sign programs); complex environmental remediation projects (such as PG&E remediation on Riverside Drive); regulation of telecommunication facilities, property transactions and contracts necessary for construction of trail connections, street widening projects, and electrical utility undergrounding projects; and contracts for service providers (e.g., coordination of ambulance services with American Medical Response West (AMR)).
The City Attorney recommends that Council approve the reclassification of the current Deputy City Attorney position to an Assistant City Attorney position based on the level of responsibilities held by that position. This position independently analyzes legal issues to be resolved to achieve the City’s goals, applies professional judgment to identify available resources to address the legal issues, assists in framing plans of action to identify the necessary procedural steps and levels of approval needed from decision-makers, and either directly provides or manages the legal services necessary to achieve the City’s goals.
Deletion of Legal Secretary and Addition of Legal Assistant:
As noted above, as a part of the budget approval process, the City Council approved the establishment of a new “Legal Secretary” position. At that time, there was an acknowledgement of a possible change in the title of that position; and, as a part of finalizing the classification specification and salary range for this item, it has become clear that a more appropriate title for this position is “Legal Assistant.”
The Legal Assistant position will provide administrative support to the offices of the City Attorney and the City Manager, focusing on supporting the overlapping responsibilities of the two offices related to risk management. The risk management services include both the defense of claims and litigation filed against the City, as well as claims and litigation the City files against other parties. The Legal Assistant will be responsible for providing administrative support services for highly confidential and sensitive information and documents, such as those related to claims and litigation. The Legal Assistant will be tasked to gather, review, and organize technical and complex information, evidence, and other records; and process financial documents. The Legal Assistant will be responsible for maintaining strong professional working relationships with City staff and many other parties, including outside counsel, court clerks, outside counsel, represented parties, and members of the public. The Legal Assistant will provide general administrative and clerical support to the City Attorney’s Office, including records management, budget, purchasing, personnel actions, arrangements for travel and training, and related matters.
Appointive Officers in the City Attorney’s Office
The attached ordinance adds the position of Legal Assistant and one additional Assistant City Attorney to the list of Appointive Officers in the City Attorney’s Office. Both will be at-will positions, reporting to the City Attorney.
FINANCIAL IMPACTS:
No additional funding beyond what has already been approved in the City Budget. The City Attorney’s Office will work with the Finance Department to shift already appropriated budget to accommodate the additional costs of these staffing plan changes.
CEQA:
The City Attorney has determined that the recommended action described in this staff report is not subject to CEQA, pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15060(c).
DOCUMENTS ATTACHED:
ATCH 1 - Ordinance
ATCH 2 - Resolution
EX A - Classification Specification for Legal Assistant
EX B - Classification Specification for Assistant City Attorney
NOTIFICATION:
Legal notices of report were published in the Napa Valley Register at least 10 days prior to the hearing date.