Herrera to sue 'at the earliest opportunity'
to remove Ed Jew from Board of Supervisors

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera
Photo by Luke Thomas

From the Office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera

October 19, 2007

Letter to City's Ethics Commission Proposes Superior Court Discovery Procedure
to Minimize Duplication of Efforts, Maximize Due Process Rights

City Attorney Dennis Herrera will file a civil action in Superior Court "at the earliest opportunity" to oust Supervisor Ed Jew from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for his failure to comply with the City Charter's residency requirements to seek or hold the office, according to a letter released this morning to the San Francisco Ethics Commission. The decision comes one day after California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued an opinion granting Herrera's application for leave to file the suit, and hours before a preliminary hearing by the Ethics Commission to address procedures for related charges of official misconduct that Mayor Gavin Newsom filed against the supervisor on Sept. 25, 2007.

Herrera's letter proposes that the Ethics Commission conduct its proceedings concurrently with the civil litigation, and that both parties avail themselves of the Superior Court's well-established discovery procedures to develop evidence in both proceedings. Such a process would avoid needless duplication of effort, Herrera argues, while offering significantly greater due process rights to the suspended supervisor than would otherwise be afforded under the Ethics Commission's current regulations governing discovery. Attorney Steven Gruel, who is representing the supervisor, has already publicly stated his intention to seek full discovery in connection with the Ethics Commission proceeding, in apparent agreement with Herrera that the full and formal process guaranteed under the California Code of Civil Procedure would serve the interests of both his client and the public generally.

"As Attorney General Brown noted in his opinion yesterday, the public interest clearly demands a prompt judicial resolution as to whether the supervisor met the residency requirements to seek or hold his public office," Herrera said. "Notwithstanding the differences between the Ethics Commission and the Superior Court proceedings, the discovery process I am proposing today would meet the needs of both cases to develop evidence on similar core facts, while maximizing Supervisor Jew's due process rights."

Herrera's letter proposes that once the parties have completed discovery, the Ethics Commission could conduct a further status conference to establish dates procedures for the conduct of the hearing on the Mayor's charges of official misconduct. Were the commission to seek updates on the discovery process, Herrera's letter added, it could establish a schedule for the parties to submit such periodic reports. Consistent with the Attorney General Opinion issued yesterday, the City Attorney will file the civil action upon the Attorney General's approval of the proposed complaint.

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