Costa Mesa City Council convenes closed session on labor negotiations and multiple litigation matters

The Costa Mesa City Council held a closed-session meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 2, to discuss labor negotiations with several employee organizations and to confer with legal counsel about multiple potential and existing lawsuits, the council announced before recessing to the closed session.

Madam Clark, the council clerk, read the closed-session agenda, saying the council would consider “conference with labor negotiators pursuant to California Government Code section 54957.6(a).” The agenda identified the interim city manager as the agency-designated representative for negotiations and named the Costa Mesa City Employees Association, the Costa Mesa Division Managers Association (reported in the record as “Coast/Costa Mesa Division Managers Association”), and the Costa Mesa City Executive Unit as the employee organizations involved.

Clark also told the council the session would include legal conferences on potential litigation under California Government Code section 54956.9(d)(2) — noting three anticipated cases — and initiation of litigation for one matter under section 54956.9(d)(4). The clerk further read that items 6 through 11 involved existing litigation under section 54956.9(d)(1), and she named several cases by party and court, including “Farrell Harrison v. City of Costa Mesa” and multiple matters involving parties transcribed as D'Alessio/D'Olesio (party-name spellings vary in the record). Clark identified Orange County Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California as venues for those cases.

Mayor called for public comments and, finding none in the chambers or on Zoom, closed public comments before recessing the meeting to the community room for the closed session. The council did not announce any votes or formal actions in open session on the matters listed on the closed agenda.

The closed-session agenda items indicate the city intended to discuss both labor contract strategy with bargaining units and confidential legal matters; by law, deliberations and decision-making in those closed items are not disclosed in public minutes while they remain confidential. The council's public record for the meeting is limited to the agenda citations, the case names read into the record, and the procedural steps of recessing to a closed session.

Next procedural steps or outcomes for the listed agenda items were not announced in open session.