Former Morro Bay City Attorney, Rob Schultz, shown here in at the Avocado & Margarita Festival, has been re-hired as interimCity Attorney.
Like a blast from the past, the Morro Bay City Council has reached back into history to unanimously hire an interim city attorney.
In December, the Council decided not to retain its contract attorney firm, Burke, Williams & Sorensen LLP, which is where the City Attorney, Chris Neumeyer, had gone to work after leaving Aleshire & Wynder, LLP.
A&W is the firm that was hired to replace the former City Attorney, Rob Schultz, who was let go along with former City Manager Andrea Lueker, in a hotly contested meeting in September 2013. Lueker left that December.
Schultz was Morro Bay’s city attorney from 1998 to 2013, when he ran afoul of a new council majority that, led by then-Mayor Jamie Irons, fired him without cause.
Schultz, within about a week, was hired as Town Attorney for Los Gatos, where he remained until retiring in 2022.
He starts work in Morro Day on Dec. 19.
Lueker became the Harbor Director at Port San Luis Harbor District, and she too has since retired from public service, and both still live in the area. She has been active with the local group REACT Alliance fighting against the floating offshore wind energy projects.
Schultz returns to City Hall one of the most experienced public attorneys in the state and has worked for several public agencies.
“During Mr. Schultz’s career,” reads a report from City Manager Yvonne Kimball, “he also served as District Counsel for San Simeon Community Services District and is currently District Counsel for Oceano Community Services District. He has also served as Special Counsel for the City of Santa Maria, Guadalupe, Pismo Beach, San Luis Obispo, Atascadero, Kings City, Solvang and Gilroy.
“His legal assignments have included conducting internal investigations, serving as a hearing officer for administrative appeals, and providing legal advice on contracts, lease issues, and development projects.”
When he was let go, the City hired A&W and their senior attorney Joe Pannone, became the lead city attorney until he retired in 2018 and was replaced by Neumeyer.
Neumeyer left A&W sometime last year and went to work for BWS, bringing the Morro Bay contract with him. But last October, the City Council decided not to renew its contract with BWS and instead seek proposals for a new city attorney. The final decision on that was made at the Dec. 19 meeting, the same night they hired Schultz as interim.
Schultz’ compensation will be $200 per hour and it’s expected to take 3-6 months to find a new permanent city attorney. It remains to be seen whether that is a law firm or a single attorney, as it was with Schultz. There are advantages and drawbacks to both.
In some regards a law firm, such as A&W and its small army of staff lawyers, offers expertise in numerous areas, some of which might be outside a single attorney’s expertise.
Bringing in different staffers to work on legal issues for the City led to charges for each employee’s time — from expert lawyers to clerks, paralegals and office help, each charged out at a different hourly rate.
In such cases, when there was an in-house attorney, Schultz brought in outside counsel to work on specialized matters.
Since the contract went to a law firm, it’s been difficult for the public to ascertain how much the City has spent on legal fees.
On the other hand, with an in-house attorney, whenever a City official ran into a legal question, he or she was able to pick up the phone and call Schultz at City Hall at no additional charges because he was a salaried employee.
With a law firm, every time they pick up the phone from a City official, the proverbial meter starts to run.
Also, Schultz used to annually issue a written report to the city council on ongoing litigation, giving a brief summary and status report on each case he’d been working on. Some of the cases have dragged on over several years.
Those reports have not been a part of the work product from the city attorney’s office since he left.