Even with a new staff attorney, Elk Grove city attorney Jonathan Hobbs continues using outside counsel
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| Even though Elk Grove city attorney Jonathan Hobbs (left) hired another staff attorney, Emilio Camacho, the city's use of outside counsel continues unabated. | |
Emilio Camacho was hired as a senior deputy attorney. Before joining Elk Grove in October 2023, Mr. Camacho was on the Sacramento city attorney's staff.
With the inclusion of Camacho, the city attorney's office has expanded its team to include five staff attorneys, a legal secretary, and a paralegal. This increase in personnel has led to a corresponding rise in the office's budget, but it appears to have had minimal effect on the city's reliance on external legal counsel.
Despite Camacho's tenure of over six months, the city's reliance on external counsel, particularly the Sacramento-based Kronick Moskovitz Tiedemann and Girard, where Hobbs was once a partner, remains unchanged.
According to the check disbursement for March 2024, the city spent $37,428 on outside counsel. Best, Best, and Krieger, which is representing the city in the Oak Rose lawsuit, received $3,112, while Hobbs' former law firm received $34,316.
Given that the attorney general's lawsuit is still hanging over the city and Hobbs is unwilling to direct his staff to handle the people's business, the law firms servicing Elk Grove will continue to profit from the city's frequent mistakes.
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4 comments
If Hobbs and a staff of five attorneys can't handle our cow-town business, we need to sever ties with them and find attorneys who can handle our issues in house. Hobbs makes better than $400,000 a year and can't handle our business despite a staff of seven? This just makes absolutely NO SENSE! What a waste of our money! Just like Oak Rose and the bad advice Hobbs offered on that debacle ($9M + wasted). The hits just keep on comin!
Is it not ironic that Mr. Hobbs provides misguided legal counsel to the city council on things like Oak Rose, hires more staff, then direct the legal work to outside counsel to fix his errors?
It is almost as if Mr. Hobbs knows he will not be terminated for his repeated foul ups, intentionally provides bum guidance to his clients, then when things collapses, has his old firm try to patch things up. A very lucrative system Mr. Hobbs has established for the partners at the firm.
We'll never know if our little Perry Mason has a vested profit sharing plan with his old cronies at KMTG because the FPPC doesn't require that kind of disclosure, but one thing is for sure: He ain't going anywhere! Can you imagine the dirt he must have on the City and its past/present politicos if they were ever to show him the door! Case closed (pun intended).
It reminds me of a scene in Casino when Nicky (played by Joe Pesci) first moves to Vegas and out muscles everyone. "Basically, I found a way not to lose."
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