Posted by SoodyQ
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Feb 26, 2021 at 4:33 pm
SoodyQ is a registered user.

I fully support the move to end the 60+ years of endless contract. I hope that the new firm can competently represent the City of Menlo Park. That said, change and fear of change should not hinder progress. Many of the new contract provisions were not even present in the original contract or its amendments with the former city attorney.

The previous firm was treated as an independent contractor only so far as it could represent other clients. However, when it came to benefits that only employees should receive, the representative attorney was receiving compensation beyond the hourly and retainer fee. So making the cost comparison is not quite a 1 to 1.

Retaining institutional knowledge is, of course, essential. However, there seems to be confusion as to which "institution" we need to retain knowledge. That institution is the City and not the contractor. If Council Members want to keep institutional knowledge, then the City Attorney role should be brought entirely in-house.

I hope that now that the decision has been made, all the council members support the new firm to ensure that it is destined for success in representing the City.

Posted by Ali Mad
a resident of another community
on Mar 9, 2021 at 10:19 am
Ali Mad is a registered user.

This was a big mistake. This Burke law firm is statist & bureaucratic. Not progressive or moderate at all. They do not even have a Peninsula office. They are a big driver of the "California League of Cities", a statist, bureaucratic organization that is against, and does not serve, the voters & taxpayers, it's basically the ALEC of statist, authoritarianist modern government, an anti-progressive entity vs today's progressive struggle for government "of the people, by the people and for the people" (Lincoln, of course, Gettysburg Address).

Burke also represents Redwood City (RWC) (still) in its shameful farce of the set-up at Docktown Marina, that has cost the City already $20 million +. Burke is conducting scorched earth, intrusive discovery into residents who remain, who are entitled to stay under State Lands Commission (SLC) policies that allow a % of slips in a marina for residential use as safety & security.

RWC, under Burke's advice, took the damaging position the voters of a city, in adopting a charter, may not vote to have an independent Port. In an unpublished opinion, the appellate court adopted this cynical, wrong & result-oriented stance. We now have to fix that & have spoken to the SLC & Lt. Gov. (Kounalakis who used to sit on the also-independent SF Port commission (all Ports are independent by charter in Cal.)) and have started this effort with our reps & senators. It has created literally a constitutional crisis in RWC and statewide.

Burke caused this crisis when Burke partner Kenyon gaslit the public by sitting as City Attorney in Dec. 2016, advising RWC to adopt the Docktown Plan and pay $3 million (lol). It likely will reach over $30 million. This firm also brought "paper UDs" (evictions without due diligence) and sued dead people and "gone" people who complied with the Plan by signing over title and giving keys. And Burke defended UDs instead of revising complaints, setting up a potentially negative UD opinion statewide against tenants