Sacramento needs fewer secret meetings and more sunshine on selecting next city manager | Opinion
The Sacramento City Council has scheduled eight closed-session discussions so far this month about the city manager position, consuming hours. What Mayor Kevin McCarty has said about this process in public amounts to a few minutes.
That’s too much said in private, giving the public no chance to have a say
Selecting the replacement for Howard Chan, California’s highest-paid city manager until illegal actions in pursuit of higher pay became his undoing, is now this new mayor’s most important first task. The time to stop the private meetings (at least one may have been illegal) and start bringing in the public is now.
Jan. 7: “We have a search firm”
The council held three closed-session discussions on the city manager’s position on the afternoon of Jan. 7, the public session promised an update on the recruitment of the permanent new manager and the appointment of the temporary one. McCarty would announce the appointment of Assistant City Manager Leyne Milstein, a long-time city employee, to temporarily run the city. As for the search for her replacement, he would say this:
“We have a search firm. Multiple entities ready to work with us for the 2025 year, hopefully, to report back in several months,” said McCarty. He called the recruitment process “a robust, national search to bring us to conclusion later this year.”
An illegal secret meeting on recruitment?
A week later, the council met yet again in closed session on three items related to the city manager position. This time, however, the agenda included a secret discussion over “recruitment,” and how to find that replacement.
In California, city councils can exclude the public from meetings only for certain topics. This meeting about recruitment was held under the guise of a “performance evaluation.” Under the state public meetings law, the Brown Act, this private meeting must be confined to the following: “To consider the appointment, employment, evaluation of performance, discipline, or dismissal of a public employee.” Recruitment, the search for an employee, is nowhere mentioned as a permissible topic for secret conversations.
David Loy, an attorney for the First Amendment Coalition specializing in transparency law, said this was an unlawful private meeting. “It’s a Brown Act problem to discuss “recruitment” in closed session.”
Yet McCarty and the City Council were scheduled to illegally meet in secret over recruitment yet again on Jan. 21. I emailed City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood, asking whether it was lawful under this Brown Act provision to meet in closed session over the city manager recruitment process.
She agreed with David Loy. She said such a meeting was not permissible.
“It should read “Appointment”, which is what is authorized under (the Brown Act provision,” Alcala Wood emailed. “Not sure where the word “recruitment” came from, although I’m glad to see we have noticed the correct section as required under the Brown Act.
“And yes you and the attorney at the First Amendment Coalition are correct – Council discussions about the search for a new city manager, including discussing the process, selecting a firm, establishing protocols, and candidate qualities are all topics for open session.”
It’s clear and concerning that the city’s top attorney is not personally reviewing these agendas carefully enough to prevent McCarty and the council from meeting illegally in secret. The council publicly announced Tuesday night that it did not hold the private discussion on recruitment.
McCarty on Jan. 21: No search firm, yet
McCarty’s comments on the city manager search Tuesday night were brief.
“Just wanted to report that the council did have a roster of approved, executive firms that we had on standby, last week our HR (human relations) director, with the help of our city clerk, requested these firms to submit cost proposals and respond to basic process questions. We’ll be agendizing this item for a future council meeting to discuss the next steps, the process and the recruitment steps to provide more direction to city staff.”
McCarty said later that he has been focused mostly on the interim appointment of Milstein. Only now is he focusing on the search and other city issues. “I think we got there,” he said.
What about public input?
McCarty expects a council discussion on the recruitment process at the January 28 council meeting — in open session. “Very open here,” the mayor said. “Very open process and what the next steps are.”
I’m willing to give the new mayor the benefit of the doubt. I really want Mayor McCarty to succeed. This all could be a case of some imperfect public comments on Jan. 7 on his part. and the City Attorney’s office wrongly scheduled closed-session discussions about recruitment two weeks in a row.
But the time for mistakes is now over. On this first big issue for McCarty out of the gate, he has time to consider the public as a crucial stakeholder to shape this search process. The public, after all, does vote.
This story was originally published January 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM.