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City Attorney(s) growing comfortable in new digs
By Steve Enders
A month has passed since city attorneys Richard Taylor and Jonathan Wittwer were chosen to take over the office that had drawn some controversy over the last year.
Taylor and Wittwer have been learning about city policy and the personalities behind the decisions. At the same time, they've been settling through changes since the death of Mayor Jim Shaw and the appointment of a new council member.
The last few months in the city attorney's office have been particularly rocky, with Mike Riback on his way out after the settlement of the Saratoga Creek case, which dragged on for years until a group of new council members chose to meet directly with plaintiffs, effectively eliminating even its own lawyers from the process.
With the City Council embarking on a selection process for a new attorney, Riback's absence from council meetings was salient as the case was wrapping up. During his final appearances at council meetings, council members openly debated Riback's future and the qualities they wanted in a replacement.
Taylor and sitting council members haven't been immune to scrutiny either, as past associations with council members raised questions about whether politics had marred the selection process.
When Riback, based in San Leandro, was still active, council members said they preferred someone who was physically closer than he and someone with an array of legal talents.
The council, after the selection was announced, said it felt confident in the arrangement with Taylor and Wittwer, although they are not in this county.
When the two were selected, the Saratoga News found that at least one payment had been made to Taylor's firm, Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger, in 1996 by the Save Our Neighborhoods Initiative Committee to help draft Measure G.
Taylor supplied legal expertise to SONIC, whose treasurer at the time was a neighborhood activist named Jim Shaw. Mayor Pro Tem Stan Bogosian was also a strong supporter of the measure. Ann Waltonsmith, who was a planning commissioner at the time of Taylor's selection, made donations to SONIC.
As the last month has worn on, Taylor, from his San Francisco-based firm's office, and Wittwer, from Santa Cruz, have been getting to know Saratoga better and letting the dust settle.
"In our application to the city we talked about Measure G," Taylor said, "and realized it might be a concern. We felt obligated to talk about it."
While the attorneys may have openly discussed their past with the council, not every council member was happy with the process, especially Nick Streit. Streit now says he's pleased with the arrangement.
SONIC paid Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger $3,800 for "legal services" for work on Measure G. The campaign filing statements, listing both payments and contributions, are public record and are on file at City Hall.
"The citizens group [SONIC] said to us, 'This is the policy we want,' and they asked us to draft the initiative. We helped them through the process of getting it on the ballot and told them what they needed to do to comply with the election code," Taylor said.
"Because of [Measure G], we knew a little about Saratoga already, and based on that, the council made its decision. You'll have to ask them, but I think we're doing a good job."
Streit, a critic not of Taylor but of the selection process, agrees.
"The thing I like the most is that he's realistic," Streit said of Taylor. "If he doesn't think you can win, he tells you."
With the council leery of litigation, Streit continued, Taylor has been honest about what different options would cost the city and has shown a will to learn the issues.
In Taylor's first week, Shaw passed away and the attorney had to give advice to set up a process to fill the vacant council seat. He's also been working with nearby cities on animal sheltering, which in another year will no longer be done by the Humane Society.
Besides helping interpret Measure G, Taylor is working with the city in a simmering dispute with AT&T over its franchise agreement with the city of Saratoga and KSAR.
Taylor said he acts as a manager, in a sense, for legal duties required by the city. He delegates some work to Wittwer, who so far has sat in on a couple of Planning Commission meetings.
Distance between the two and the city hasn't been a problem, he said.
"In this day and age with faxes and email and telephones--Jonathan has business to do in the county sometimes, so when we have to meet, we can," Taylor said. "The city's done a good job putting its municipal code together, and we've brought ourselves up to speed at no additional charge to the city."
Additionally, Taylor said one of the advantages of having a firm behind him is that he can seek advice from other members and from Wittwer when issues arise in areas in which he's not strong.
"It's important to me to spend time getting to know the way my clients work. It's always a question of who can do the best job most efficiently with the city. So far, we've been productive."
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
