(25) County Counsel

The Office of County Counsel provides a broad range of high quality, cost-effective legal services designed to promote the public service objectives of the County of San Benito, and each of its departments and agencies, in compliance with all applicable legal requirements, while at the same time protecting the County from risk and loss.

• Continued to handle all County legal matters efficiently and professionally
• Worked to streamline assignments and reduce the time necessary for legal review
• Increased reporting on pending litigation matters
• Reduced use of outside counsel
• Continued to work on reducing potential legal risks to the County
• Completed revisions to hemp ordinance, performed legal work related to C-1 and C-3 zoning
• Completed code enforcement abatement proceedings, including for illegal hemp sites
• Assisted in the Buena Vista Property purchase
• Utilized salary savings from a temporary deputy county counsel vacancy to install video conferencing technology for offsite collaboration, including use of remote administrative hearing officer engagement to reduce travel expense costs.
• Facilitated the adoption of amendments to building code provisions of the County Code

• The County Counsel’s office is still in need of a second front office support staff to assist with clerical tasks and support document management (including scanning all incoming/finished assignments and working with attorneys on electronic file management). Additionally, on complicated, significant, or reoccurring issues, greater work could be performed to document and retain for future use the legal process followed and result. For example, the legal work for a Proposition 218 process or the process for the imposition of a new or increased tax or fee can and should be documented for future use. This future support staff (eventually permanent, full-time) could be part-time or temporary to start. An additional individual in a front office support position could assist with document management, tracking of assignments and other various support functions. However, our office has not requested an additional FTE this fiscal year in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This will be a request in a future budget year. A request for $20,000 is being submitted for temporary staffing (approximately 20 hours per week) for consideration. However, technology upgrades are of primary importance this year to replace outmoded and inadequate case management software and networking hardware that inhibits improvement in office productivity.

• Improve document management system and ability to track on-going assignments (This item is subject to a pending budget request to improve the Department’s document management system)
• Develop/facilitate a process for future knowledge transfer (including operational policies) as one aspect of transitional planning.
• Update Department’s website for convenience of the public and County departments.
• Increase staffing with HR and relevant departments for more frequent review of every workers’ compensation claim, extended absence, and accommodation issue in the department to review all County employee leaves of absence, confirm that appropriate back to work efforts are being made, and identify cases where the County is legally obligated to begin the interactive process for reasonable accommodation, and where the department may lawfully separate long-absent employees who remain unable or unwilling to return to work
• Discuss with other departments and Board of Supervisors and potentially develop an email record retention policy
• Perform a comprehensive review of the County Code and prepare amendments where appropriate to reduce or eliminate redundancies, inconsistencies, or conflicts with current state law and constitutional requirements