City of Sacramento
Personnel and Public Employees Committee Report
915 I Street Sacramento, CA 95814
www.cityofsacramento.org
File ID: 2023-00910 7/25/2023 Discussion Item 1.
Annual Report and Performance Evaluation for City Council Appointive Officer - City Attorney (Review Period 2022)
File ID: 2023-00910
Location: Citywide
Recommendation: Receive annual report and pass a Motion forwarding to the City Council for review.
Contact: Susana Alcala Wood, City Attorney, (916) 808-5346, [email protected], Office of the City Attorney
Presenter: Susana Alcala Wood, City Attorney, (916) 808-5346, [email protected], Office of the City Attorney
Attachments:
1-Description/Analysis
2-City Attorney Linkage Policy Report on Compliance
3-Annual Report - TBD
4-DEI Strategy and Goals
5-CAO Volunteer, Professional, and Community Contributions 2022 Description/Analysis
Issue Detail: The mayor and city council is committed to performing regular annual reviews of its appointive officers.
The annual report and appointed officer evaluation is intended to move forward to the city council.
The city council will meet in closed session, per Government Code section 54957(b), to provide feedback on past accomplishments and to give direction on the workplan for the upcoming year.
Overview
City of Sacramento Charter § 72 City Attorney
The city council shall appoint a city attorney and shall prescribe the qualifications, duties and compensation of such officer. The city attorney shall serve as legal counsel to the city government and all officers, departments, boards, commissions and agencies thereof and
File ID: 2023-00910 7/25/2023 Disucssion Item 1.
shall have such other powers and duties as may be prescribed by state law and by ordinance or resolution of the city council. In situations where the city attorney determines there is a conflict in representation by that office, the city council may authorize the retention or other legal counsel to represent one of the conflicting parties. The city attorney shall appoint all other members of the city attorney’s office.
The City Attorney serves as legal counsel to the City Council, City Officers and Department staff, boards, and commissions as well as the Administration, Investment and Fiscal Management Board, Sacramento City Financing Authority, and Sacramento Regional Arts Facilities Financing Authority.
The Office provides legal representation in criminal, civil and administrative litigation, renders advice and counsel, and prepares ordinances, resolutions, contracts, opinions, and other legal documents for the City and its related entities. The City Attorney’s Office is organized into four operational divisions and an administration division.
· Administration: Develops and implements office policies and procedures; monitors overall office performance; prepares and administers the office budget; develops and implements education and training; handles all personnel hiring, evaluation, and other personnel matters; assembles and analyzes office productivity data, including the production of an annual report; and engages in long-range planning.
· General Counsel & Advisory Division: Provides advisory and transactional advice and support to charter offices and city departments on all aspects of municipal law including: Brown Act; Public Records Act; CEQA and NEPA; water law; propositions 26 and 218; public bidding, construction and procurement; contract negotiation, drafting and review; prevailing wages; transportation modes; real estate procurement, conveyance and leasing; solid waste disposal; landfill regulation; and various other areas of municipal law. · Litigation Division: Defends and prosecutes civil litigation cases on behalf of the City and its officers and employees acting in the course and scope of employment; and provides legal support to Risk Management.
· Community Advocacy & Public Safety Division: Works collaboratively with City departments on code enforcement, social nuisance abatement, public safety issues, including prosecuting code violations through administrative, civil, or criminal proceedings, and social nuisances through civil litigation and training, and advising staff on enforcement matters. · Strategic Projects & Research Division: Provides strategic support to the City Council’s policymaking function by providing legal advice and response on multi-departmental projects and Council initiatives, including issues of homelessness, economic development, cannabis regulations, and emergency management.
File ID: 2023-00910 7/25/2023 Discussion Item 1.
The attached linkage policy report details City Attorney compliance with the stated goals and objectives for the past reporting period. The remaining attachments highlight the evaluation period accomplishments of the City Attorney as well as the strategic goals and objectives for the upcoming evaluation period.
Policy Considerations: Council Rules of Procedure, Chapter 18.
Economic Impacts: Not applicable.
Environmental Considerations: Not applicable.
Sustainability: Not applicable.
Commission/Committee Action: Not applicable.
Rationale for Recommendation: Clear communication and performance metrics are at the core of the work of the council and the city. To evaluate council appointive officers on a consistent basis, the Personnel and Public Employee (P&PE) Committee has the role and responsibility of developing and leading annual performance metrics and evaluations.
Financial Considerations: Not applicable.
Local Business Enterprise (LBE): Not applicable.
City Attorney Attachment No. 2
Council Staff Linkage: City Attorney
REPORT ON COMPLIANCE
Presented to Council P&PE Committee Meeting of July 25, 2023 Scope: Council Directed
Policy Number: 002
Date of Adoption: 06-26-2018
Resolution No.: 2018-0259
Monitoring Method: City Attorney Report
Frequency: Annually, based on appointment date
A. The City Attorney provides legal counsel to the council, city manager, and all departments, offices, boards, and commissions of the city. The city attorney represents the city in litigation and prosecutes city code violations.
B. The City Attorney reports directly to the City Council. The City Council is responsible for hiring, evaluating, and terminating the City Attorney.
C. The City Attorney shall not cause or allow any practice, activity, decision, or organizational circumstance that is illegal, unethical, imprudent, or in violation of commonly accepted business and professional ethics.
D. The City Attorney shall provide applicable monitoring reports to the City Manager for consolidation into a comprehensive citywide report.
E. The City Attorney shall treat the council as a whole and be responsive to individual council members except where substantial resources are required to fulfill a request.
F. With respect to the council, the city manager, and those reporting directly to the council, the city attorney shall:
1. Give his or her advice and legal opinion whenever necessary or deemed required.
2. Inform the council and city manager of potential or future material legal issues impacting the city.
3. Provide counsel to the council as well as to individual council members regarding conflicts of interest and ethical matters.
4. Assist the council in complying with applicable statutes and laws.
5. Inform the council of developments that have the potential of exposing the city to legal or reputational risk.
G. The city attorney shall not provide legal counsel to any council member or employee except in their official city capacity.
Report by the City Attorney on Compliance with the City Attorney Linkage Policy over the past reporting period:
I have provided legal advice directly and through the attorney members of the Office to the Council, the City Manager and all departments, boards and commissions. The principal goal of the office is to be responsive and provide timely legal advice that promotes confidence in the Council and the staff.
The Office has represented the City diligently in a large variety of civil litigation, including appellate cases.
We have continued to pursue a significant number of JFN cases including Cannabis cases. We have also prosecuted municipal code violations. I have provided legal advice and opinions when requested, but also whenever I determined that they were necessary or required to best inform the Council and policy makers. Working collaboratively with the charter officers, but in particular the City Manager ensures that I can provide timely advice.
I have assisted the Council in complying with applicable statutes and laws by providing advice and counsel when asked, and also when I deemed it necessary to raise legal issues that were significant to the policy decision. Over the past reporting period I have kept the council advised of any developments that had the potential to expose the city to legal or reputational risk. These often came up in the context of closed session discussion, confidential memorandum, individual council member briefings, and emails.
Submitted: March 18, 2023 SA Wood
Attachment 4
OFFICE OF THE CITY ATTORNEY
DEI Strategies and Goals
A. Internal structural efforts to embed DEI goals in the City Attorney’s Office Since the creation of the City Attorney’s Office’s internal DEI team in 2021, much was accomplished in 2022.
Our team created both short and long-term goals, including the implementation of our office’s Diversity Mission Statement:
CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFI CE - DIVERSITY MISSI ON STATEMENT
The Sacramento City Attorney’s Office is fully committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion by employing a workforce that is as diverse as the people of the City of Sacramento. We foster this mission by treating each other with respect, eliminating barriers so that everyone can reach their full potential, and creating a safe space for dialogue related to current and pressing challenges faced in our communities such as: economic, gender, sexual orientation, racial, and religious disparities.
Diversity - in people and perspective - is essential to the extraordinary legal services that we provide to the City of Sacramento. We are committed to recruiting, developing, retaining, and promoting exceptionally talented lawyers and staff with diverse backgrounds and experiences to continue t o provide the City with the outstanding leadership, integrity, and counsel it deserves.
We created a strategic plan that includes recruitment, development and training, retention and promotion and community outreach.
In furtherance of the commitment to make DEI an integral part of the City Attorney’s Office structure, subcommittees were created to focus on both internal and external topics that advance our DEI goals.
A mentorship program was created to pair colleagues with one another not only for training purposes but to come together with common goals, expectations, focus, trust, and respect.
Lastly, we had our first all-staff off-site meeting, organized by the City Attorney and the CAO Diversity Team working with Aimee Barnes and her team, to start the conversation around identifying learning points and objectives for future capacity building discussions.
B. Report on recruitment, hiring and promotion efforts
Recruitment:
A comprehensive review was completed of where CAO recruitments are advertised and shared and a more expansive list was created to increase the reach to more organizations.
Members of the CAO team participated in an inaugural minority job fair organized by local bar associations.
C. Tracking hiring and promotion efforts
The CAO’s commitment to diversity in the City Attorney’s Office has had positive impacts on achieving the goals laid out in the Office Diversity Mission Statement.
Since the Auditor published the “2017 Audit of the City’s Gender and Ethnic Diversity” in January 2018, the CAO has reaped the benefits of its commitment to DEI efforts across the entire office. This table sets out our employees’ self- reported ethnic identities, by number of employees and percentage of employees in the CAO, in the Auditor’s report and again at the end of 2022.
ETHNICITY 2018 12/31/2022
WHITE 37 (79%) 39 (64%)
HISPANIC 1 (2%) 7 (11%)
ASIAN 3 (6%) 5 (8%)
BLACK 3 (6%) 6 (10%)
TWO/MORE 2 (4%) 1 (2%)
FILIPINO 1 (2%) 3 (5%)
HAW/PI 0 0
AM INDIAN 0 0
MENA 0 0
Total Employees 47 61
Our DEI efforts have also continued to improve employment opportunities for women in the CAO.
GENDER 2018 12/31/2022
FEMALE 26 (55%) 35 (57%)
MALE 21 (45%) 26 (43%)
Total Employees 47 61
Finally, the commitment of the CAO, and particularly its administrative team, to the DEI mission ha s resulted in equitable promotional opportunities when considering the ethnic and gender makeup of the office. Since 2018, the CAO has provided promotional opportunities on 24 occasions, and the below table sets out the number for each ethnic group and gender, as well as the percentage of the promotions that number represents.
Ethnicity Promotions
White 13 (54%)
Hispanic 3 (13%)
Asian 1 (4%)
Black 4 (17%)
Filipino 3 (13%)
Gender Promotions
Female 14 (61%)
Male 10 (39%)
Attachment 5
OFFICE OF THE CITY ATTORNEY
Report on 2022 volunteer, professional and community involvement and activities by CAO staff
City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood was elected to serve as the second vice president of the Cal Cities City Attorney’s Department. City Attorney’s Office joins the legal community at the Sacramento Regional Diversity Career Fair which aims to connect employers with diverse legal candidates for current and future job openings. Senior Deputy City Attorney Katherine Underwood served as the 2022 President of the Women Lawyers of Sacramento.
Senior Deputy City Attorney Katherine Underwood was one of three who put together a panel discussion on the topic of embracing intersectionality , in honor of International Women ’s Day, with the Sacramento County Bar Association and Women Lawyers of Sacramento .
Senior Deputy City Attorney, Emilio Camacho, was nominated to Chair the Cannabis Regulation Committee (Committee) of the League of California Cities within the City Attorneys Depa rtment . Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento honored the Sacramento City Attorney ’s Office for its innovative work in helping to create more affordable housing.
- Habitat ’s leadership award was presented to City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood and the City Attorney ’s office during Habitat for Humanity ’s 28th annual Hammy Awards.
Assistant City Attorney Matt Ruyak was selected to serve on the CalCities to review and update the City Attorney’s Department Municipal Law Handbook.
Senior Deputy City Attorneys Jennifer Gore and Michael Voss presented “Public Construction Law – Key Issues and the Role of the Attorney Advisor ” to the Sacramento Chapter of the American Public Works Association .
Senior Deputy City Attorneys Michael Sparks and Kurt Wendlenner presented an overview of the Public Acts Request Citywide via CityYOU .
Senior Deputy City Attorneys Aaron Israel and Beau Parkhurst presented “A Case Study: A Capital City’s Approach to Unshel tered Homelessness ” to the International Municipal Lawyers Association . Senior Deputy City Attorney Aaron Israel presented “ Confronting Unsheltered Homelessness in the Wake of Martin v. City of Boise” to the Sacramento County Bar Association.
Deputy City Attorneys Aaron Israel, Kevin Kundinger, Angel Solis and Senior Deputy City Attorneys Beau Parkhurst and Emilio Camacho gave a training session via CityYOU “Enforcement Strategies to Address Homelessness.” Office Administrator Angela Kolak volu nteered with the Sacramento Legal Secretaries Association at their annual event which hands out candy and leads craft activities with the children in attendance.
The staff of the City Attorney’s Office, as part of the holiday tradition, collected $650 to donate to Women’s Empowerment, a non -profit organization that educates and empowers women who are homeless with the skills and confidence necessary to get a job, maintain a healthy lifestyle, and regain a home for themselves and their children.