The city of Chula Vista last month reached a settlement in a lawsuit that changes the way the city appoints members on the city council and on several boards and commissions.
The settlement keeps appointed councilman Steve Miesen on the dais until his term expires in November. In exchange, the city of Chula Vista agreed to pay $125,000 in attorney fees to Coast Law Group LLP $125,000.
But the process still remains a point of contention.
Chula Vista’s decades old process –the process used to appoint Miesen- had the mayor and city council fill out a nomination sheet on their own and submitting their sheet to the city clerk who then at a separate public meeting announced which applicants received two or more votes to move into the interview round.
Under the new process, the city council will no longer fill out a nomination sheet on their own; instead the sheets are filled out at a public meeting. Once each council member fills out their sheets, it is submitted to the city clerk who will then announce the results of the nominations at the same meeting.
Chula Vista City Attorney Glen Googins said the results of who each council member nominated will not be announced.
“That’s not part of the announcement,” he said. “However, we’ve now declared as part of the policy and my advice under the Public Records Act is that those things are public records at the time they are submitted. So if anybody wants copies of them, they are available.”
Googins said the city will not apply the deliberative process exemption for any request for the nomination sheets.
But Marco Gonzalez, attorney for the petitioner Chris Shilling, disagrees with Googins and said under the settlement it should be announced who each council member nominated.
“We anticipate that the entire process will be done in the open,” he said. “So the nominations will be made in public, the tally will be done in public, there will be nothing that will be characterized as a secret ballot… and what is being described to me is a secret ballot.”
Gonzalez said he stands by the language of the settlement and wants to see how the process actually plays out before considering further legal action.
The city currently uses this interim process, which will soon become the permanent process once it is adopted by the city council.
Shilling and the watchdog government group San Diegans for Open Government sued the city of Chula Vista last February, for what they claim was a violation of the Ralph M. Brown Act – the state’s open meeting laws- over the process used to appoint Miesen on the city council.
Shilling contended that council members and the mayor held a serial meeting with the city clerk in emailing their nominations.
Miesen was appointed to the seat left vacant by then councilwoman Mary Salas, who was elected mayor in 2014.
Forty-four people applied and only eight were nominated as finalists, including Miesen.
