Stephen Fischer appointed Oxnard City Attorney

By George Miller

Stephen Fischer’s appointment as City Attorney, reporting to the City Council, was announced at the Tuesday 4-5-16 City Council meeting. He has been doing the job for years as Interim City Attorney and has been in the legal department for seven years. He took over as Interim City Attorney in July, 2013, after longtime and beloved incumbent Alan Holmberg had to step down for health reasons and later passed away.

New City Attorney Stephen Fischer at 4-5-16 Oxnard City Council meeting. Photo: Dan Pinedo/CitizensJournal.us

A recruiter ran the search, while the final recommendation and contract negotiations were performed by an outside attorney and the City’s Human Resources Director, in conjunction with a Council subcommittee, which the whole council considered in a closed session to make their final decision.

He has served seemingly unflappably during an unusually turbulent period in the city’s history, spanning the departure in disgrace of a previous City Manager, Director of Public Works and other employees, scandals in The Housing Department, a complete turnover of the CIty Manager’s office, the departure of all director level personnel except one, multiple civilian deaths at the hands of police officers, gang warfare leading to a struggle over gang injunctions, improper use of accumulated employee leave, major contract disputes, difficult labor negotiations and alleged persecution of whistleblowers. The City also prevailed in a wrongful termination suit against the former City Manager, as well as being granted a summary judgment on the matter of post-retirement benefits illegally granted to some City retirees by that same former City Manager. During this time, he worked hard to deal with these crises, supervising the small department and squads of outside legal counsel.

He has been instrumental in helping to modify city policies to help prevent recurrences of some of these massive problems. A few examples of solutions are: the new whistleblower protection policy, changes in ethics policies and training to implement them and a future office of internal audit. It is not unusual for Mr. Fischer to jump in and interject some advice if he suspects that the direction of a meeting might subject the City to additional unwarranted legal risks.

Mr. Fischer was awarded a three year contract with a $205,000 base salary and fringes which bring the total compensation package to about $300,00, plus or minus 5%, according to Human Resource Director Tabin Cosio. While no Council Member took issue with the appointment, it was Bert Perello who ferreted out the full compensation package amount and objected to having no performance review schedule or performance objectives, which he noted is a recurring problem in city recruiting. There was a Council consensus that there should be a review at least annually, but several other Council Members balked at setting performance criteria up front, saying it should be done later.

Council Members Bert Perello, Mayor Pro-tem Carmen Ramirez, Mayor Tim Flynn, new City Attorney Stephen Fischer, Council Members Dorina Padilla and Bryan MacDonald, after 4-5-16 Oxnard City Council meeting. Photo: Dan Pinedo/CitizensJournal.us

George Miller is Publisher of CitizensJournal.us and a “retired” operations management consultant residing in Oxnard.