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Councilor urges enforcement of ordinance, committee tables resolution after debate
Summary
Councilor Stephanie Infante urged enforcement of ordinance 2.04.081 to declare an acting community development director appointment expired and trigger a formal hiring process; other councilors pressed for broader language and legal review, and the committee ultimately tabled the item pending revisions and further information.
Councilor Stephanie Infante presented a resolution (Item 8926) asking the Ordinance Committee to invoke section D of city ordinance 2.04.081 and treat the community development director appointment as expired after the 90-day acting limit had passed.
"When I first drafted this resolution...the administration was 253 days past the legal 90-day limit," Infante said, adding that as of the committee meeting the period was roughly 270 days overdue. She urged the council to "authorize and direct the personnel director Carol Garcia to immediately post and advertise the position" and to certify and submit the five highest applicants for council selection.
The resolution cites specific ordinance language requiring posting and a 30-day selection window and references supporting documents the sponsor included in committee packets. Infante said she had discussed the draft with the city attorney before submitting it and framed the proposal as a duty to enforce the law rather than a personal attack: "This is not about any personalities...this is about the integrity of our governance."
Several councilors questioned the scope and wording. Councilor Gregor de Rosario said he feared the draft appeared to target a single position and urged a more general, citywide fix: "I don't like when we point into one direction only...it looks like we're targeting somebody." He and others suggested broadening the language so the ordinance would apply consistently across all departments. Councilor Franklin Miguel and others pressed for confirmation from human resources on whether other acting appointments had exceeded the 90-day limit.
Infante responded that she had checked with HR and at that time the community development director situation was the most severe, and she offered to amend the language if the committee preferred a more generic approach. She reiterated the legal basis for the resolution and cited an internal email provided in the packet in which a mayoral senior advisor said non-urgent duties would be deferred until after a prior election date — a rationale Infante said did not supersede the city's charter or ordinances.
After extended discussion about precedent, process and possible unintended consequences of naming individual positions, a motion was made both to send the resolution to the full council with a favorable recommendation and to table it. The motion to table prevailed; the sponsor said she will revise the language and seek updates from personnel about other acting appointments before the item returns to committee.
The committee did vote separately to forward a companion technical change (Item 9026) — removal of the word "provisional" from ordinance text to reflect a prior legislative change — to full council with a favorable recommendation.
The committee did not adopt an immediate enforcement action at this meeting. The next steps are for the sponsor to submit amended language and for committee members to receive legal and HR clarifications before any formal council action.
