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Residents accuse former city code officer of acting as counsel and witness; council hears calls for fee disgorgement

Cotati City Council · August 27, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

During public comment residents alleged that the city's former code enforcement officer, Robert A. Smith, acted impermissibly as both counsel and witness in administrative hearings and urged the council to seek disgorgement of fees; council did not take a formal action at the meeting.

Cotati — Multiple residents used public comment time on Aug. 26 to accuse the city’s former code enforcement officer, Robert A. Smith, of violating California’s Rules of Professional Conduct by serving as both counsel and a witness in administrative hearings, and demanded the city recoup fees paid to him.

Laurie Alderman opened the sequence of comments by asking the council to require that "all monies…

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