Existing law allows the City Council to appoint a city attorney and to set the compensation of the city attorney. Under existing law, the city attorney is not required to be an employee of the City, but may be an independent attorney or law firm hired by the City Council. Existing law does not specify what budgetary or review process the City must follow with respect to the city attorney's office. Currently, the city attorney of the City of Pittsburg is an independent attorney retained under contract by the City Council and is not a City employee.

This initiative measure would require the City Council of the City of Pittsburg to appoint a full-time city attorney at a salary of up to $125,000 per year. The City Council could choose any licensed attorney and, other than salary, the measure does not specify terms of the engagement (for example, the level of retirement or other benefits, the amount of paid time off or whether or not the attorney is a direct employee of the City, or an independent attorney) so long as the attorney devotes full time to the office.

The measure would permit the City Council to approve cost of living increases to the city attorney's salary in an unlimited amount by majority vote of the Council. The City Council would be required to conduct an annual accountability review to evaluate the performance of the city attorney's office and to make findings each year, after a public hearing, as to the effectiveness of the office.

The measure does not prohibit the City from engaging additional lawyers or law firms as determined by the City Council to handle legal matters for the City. There is no requirement for a budget for or review of such expenditures nor is there a limit on the cost or number of such outside legal counsel.

If enacted, this measure could only be repealed or amended by a vote of the people at a City election.

If both this Measure "U" and Measure "T" on the City ballot at this election pass:

• If this Measure "U" receives more "yes" votes than Measure "T", both measures will become effective except to the extent that any provision of Measure "T" is inconsistent with a provision of Measure "U", in which case the provisions of Measure "U" will take precedence and the applicable provisions of Measure "T" will not become effective.
• If Measure "T" receives more "yes" votes than this measure "U" then Measure "T" will take precedence over Measure "U" and no portion of this Measure "U" will become effective.

The measure sets the maximum amount that the City would pay annually to the city attorney so low, that we could be forced to hire a less experienced lawyer, with insufficient practical expertise in municipal law. The amount the city would then have to pay for outside counsel, to provide the experience the city attorney lacked, would be increased far beyond what we pay under the current system.

As has been shown conclusively in other cities we have surveyed, employing a full-time in-house city attorney would require full-time support staff, a full-time office, complete with updated law library, equipment and appropriate administrative staff to handle the day to day operations of legal service. Under the current system, the city incurs none of these costs as they are provided by the contract attorney at his expense.

Measure U is bad policy. It forces the City to abandon the current cost-effective system we have and forces us to return to a method we have used in the past which has proven to be much more costly.

In addition to the quality of legal service the City of Pittsburg receives will be significantly reduced, which could lead to the City's involvement in more costly litigation and law suits. Please, vote no on Measure U to keep the cost of legal services manageable while maintaining the high quality of legal representation we currently have.

Lori G. Anzini, Mayor

Robert T. Lewis, Vice Mayor

Ronald S. Currie, Mayor (retired)

Federal D. Glover, Councilmember