The Vallejo City Council voted Tuesday to renew its search for a law firm to assess whether recent allegations of misconduct by the City Attorney’s Office merit an independent investigation.
In closed session, the council directed City Manager Andrew Murray to solicit proposals from five new firms to evaluate allegations detailed in a July 24 letter from the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
“Renne Public Law Group is not able to support the city and perform that work, and so we’ll be looking for another firm to do that,” Murray said during a public portion of Tuesday’s meeting.
Renne Public Law Group did not respond to a request for comment.
Murray did not disclose why the firm, which the City Council selected to conduct the review last Tuesday, will not lead the initial review into the allegations regarding the City Attorney’s Office. However, the city manager said the new firms should be free of conflicts of interest. The city has an existing contract with Renne Public Law Group, which includes an administrative review of the 2023 police shooting of Jamazea Kittell.
The about-face comes as council members face increased community pressure for greater transparency in city government.
In its July 24 letter, the ACLU called for an independent investigation into the city attorney’s office, alleging violations of the City Charter and potential civil and criminal misconduct. The organization cited the office’s role in illegally destroying evidence in police shootings, as well as allegations that the city systematically defied court orders to produce officer misconduct files, ignored racist threats directed at the city’s first Black police chief, and delayed implementation of the city’s police oversight commission as grounds for an investigation.
The city attorney’s office and city spokesperson Robert Briseño did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
The city asserted in a July 28 statement to Open Vallejo that the ACLU letter “contains numerous statements and allegations relating to the City Attorney’s Office which are not factual,” adding, “The City Attorney’s Office continues to be committed to serving the City of Vallejo with the utmost honesty and integrity.”
The same day the ACLU sent its letter, Vallejo petitioned the state Supreme Court to block the release of a third-party investigative report into the police department’s “Badge of Honor” scandal. The tradition, revealed by Open Vallejo in 2020, involved Vallejo police officers who bent the tips of their badges to commemorate shooting civilians.
In June, the First District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that the report and related investigative materials must be released in response to a public records lawsuit brought by the ACLU, in which Open Vallejo filed two friend-of-the-court briefs.
The Vallejo City Council was divided on whether to seek review of the decision in the state Supreme Court. A public records request by this newsroom, which the city initially denied in error, revealed that councilmembers were split 4-3 in a June 3 vote to authorize the city attorney to pursue the appeal.
Mayor Andrea Sorce and Councilmembers Tonia Lediju and Alexander Matias voted in favor of releasing the report. Councilmembers Peter Bregenzer, J.R. Matulac, Charles Palmares, and Helen-Marie Gordon voted to appeal to the Supreme Court, delaying the report’s disclosure.
