(LOS ANGELES) – Today, Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto announced that she has called on LA City Council to oppose the Charter Reform Commission’s (the Commission) recommendation to change the structure of the City Attorney’s office. Feldstein Soto opposes the Commission’s proposal to change the LA Charter in order to divide the municipal and prosecutorial parts of the Office and make the municipal City Attorney appointed by the Mayor and City Council.
“The Commission's proposal would erode the fundamental right of Los Angeles residents to select an independent arbiter of law to represent the City and the people of the State of California,” said Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto. “Maintaining the current structure of this office is critical to ensure that Angelenos have an elected City Attorney –unlike an appointed City Attorney– who is accountable only to the voters and benefits from the independence essential to serving the best interests of the City.”
There have been several efforts over the decades to create an appointed City Attorney responsive to the elected Councilmembers, efforts that were rejected by City policy makers who decided to preserve the City Attorney's independence as an elected City officer. The City had an elected City Attorney at its incorporation in 1850, and has continued to have an elected City Attorney throughout its 176-year history, except for a single failed experiment between 1911 and 1933.
Changing the structure of the City Attorney’s office would cause Angelenos to shoulder what is likely to be the substantial costs of of dividing the City Attorney's office into separate civil and criminal offices. There are likely to be substantial and unnecessary redundancies, including duplications and inefficiencies in administrative support, training, back office accounting, payroll, cash, human resources, staffing, technology, equipment, and union bargaining terms. In the fiscally delicate times the City currently navigates, these costs should be quantified before any serious consideration is given to dividing the office of City Attorney.
Dividing the City Attorney's office into separate civil and criminal entities would jeopardize the working relationship between the City's elected representatives and the People's prosecuting authority and would sever the relationship between the City's municipal attorney and the voters across the City. Under the current Charter, the City Attorney serves as both civil municipal attorney and as criminal prosecutor who may prosecute misdemeanors.
An elected City Attorney’s office with a combined civil and criminal branch not only costs City taxpayers less than an appointed bifurcated office, but is fundamental to the checks and balances of our local government and critical to the democratic process enshrined in the City Charter and 176 years of history.
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Hydee Feldstein Soto is the 43rd Los Angeles City Attorney, elected in November 2022 and sworn into office in December 2022. Her team of nearly 1,000 legal professionals, including 500+ attorneys, carries out legal work for the City of Los Angeles at her direction and under her supervision. She is the first female City Attorney in L.A. history.