The 59.6 square mile, 224,274-population town of San Bernardino isn’t big enough, apparently, for Rochelle Clayton and Sonia Carvalho.
Over the next several weeks, the city council as it now exists will partially recompose itself by shedding Fifth Ward Councilman Ben Reynoso, Sixth Ward Councilwoman Kimberly Calvin and Seventh Ward Councilman Damon Alexander and take on in their places, respectively, Kim Knaus, Mario Flores and Treasure Ortiz. As the calendar progresses into the first weeks and months of 2025 and the latter three acclimate themselves to their positions of authority, either Clayton will be relieved of her current status as acting city manager and be returned to her original position of assistant city manager or she will be promoted to full-fledged status as the city’s top administrator. If, indeed, Clayton is entrusted with the administration of San Bernardino’s municipal government, the continuation of Carvalho’s now more-than-six-year-long tenure as San Bernardino City Attorney will no longer be tenable. She will be forced to leave the city, taking her firm, Best Best & Krieger, with her.
On the other hand, if the city council, in the aftermath of an outside consulting firm’s ongoing evaluation of the performances of the city manager, city attorney and city clerk, ultimately decides to stay the course with Carvalho, the likelihood that the city council would elect to permanentize Clayton in the city manager role is virtually nil and, moreover, her remaining in the assistant city manager position from which she rose into the interim manager post she now holds would present such an awkward circumstance that she would probably have to depart the city altogether.
This week’s regular city council meeting held substantial significance for both Clayton and Carvalho in terms of their respective futures with the city. Yet when the meeting began at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, neither the city manager nor the city attorney were in their assigned places along the extended table accommodating a row of city staff members position so they face the council dais in the auditorium at the Norman Feldheym Library that serves as the council chamber. For those with an inkling of what has settled over city operations, it seemed as if both might have taken their leave of San Bernardino.
A battle between Clayton and Carvalho has been brewing for weeks, if not months.
Clayton’s advent as the current top administrator in the county seat was a thoroughly unconventional one. In early April of this year, she had been selected by then-City Manager Charles Montoya to serve as assistant city manager. Just seven weeks later, on May 22, the city council fired Montoya. Needing a stopgap municipal executive to ride herd on the city’s employees, the city council by vote of 5-to-3, with Mayor Helen Tran, Third Ward councilman Juan Figueroa, Fourth Ward Councilman Fred Shorett, Reynoso and Calvin prevailing and First Ward Councilman Ted Sanchez, Second Ward Councilwoman Sandra Ibarra and Alexander dissenting to appoint Clayton acting city manager. Moving into the summer, Clayton slowly built a rapport with the entire council, so much so that the council held off on seeking Montoya’s replacement by undertaking an outside recruitment of experienced city managers, entrusting to her the day-to-day, week-to-week and ultimately the month-to-month running of the city. By late September she had grown on the entire city council to the point that on October 2, the council scheduled a closed-door executive discussion with her at which her performance over the previous four months was evaluated and negotiations between her and them took place about dropping the qualifier interim from her title and her assuming the full-fledged city manager position. After that closed session, it was announced that the council had voted unanimously to extend an employment offer to her and finalize her appointment as city manager at the next regularly scheduled council meeting. Because the council was engaged with a California League of Cities meeting on October 16, that meeting was canceled, and the hiring was pushed off until the November 6 meeting.
In the interim, however, based upon Councilman Sanchez’s inquiry, carried out under the auspices of the California Public Records Act, it was learned that the California Department of Housing and Community Development in July had approved providing the City of San Bernardino with a $17 million Homekey Program grant to be used for its effort to establish a comprehensive homeless services and housing facility on the former School of Hope campus on Sixth Street, which Clayton had not informed the council about and which she, again without input from the council or informing its members, had turned down.
The revelation that the city had foregone the reception of the grant because of Clayton’s unilateral decision gave enough members of the council pause that the decision to finalize the contract with her on November 6 was continued to a future date.
In the immediate aftermath of that postponement, the individuals in favor of Clayton’s hiring turned out in full force. Foursquare behind her on the current council were Mayor Tran and Councilwoman Calvin. Based upon their public statements, it is also recognized that Ortiz and Flores are in favor of installing Clayton as city manager. Another factor in Clayton’s favor is that real estate mogul and developer Scott Beard is in favor of her elevation to the long-term city manager’s post and is lobbying on her behalf. Beard makes substantial contributions to local politicians he approves of and who have been supportive of his developmental agenda and projects. Beard is not reluctant to spend even larger amounts of his money to target local officials he does not care for and who are not willing to approve his developmental proposals. Sanchez and Ibarra have said that Beard has pressured them to support Clayton’s promotion and that if they do not, he will commit a portion of his substantial resources to blasting them out of office in 2026, when both must stand for reelection.
Tran and Calvin, who have had their differences during the nearly two years that Tran has been mayor and who do not see eye-to-eye on a number of issues, are nonetheless united in wanting to permanentize Clayton as city manager. Knowing that Sanchez has grown disenchanted with Clayton, they were hopeful they might yet be able to convince at least three and maybe four or all five among Ibarra, Figueroa, Shorett, Reynoso and Alexander to endorse Clayton’s promotion before the second council meeting in December, when Reynoso, Calvin and Alexander are set to depart.
Simultaneously, a move is afoot to force Carvalho out as city attorney, based on a number of points of contention and dissatisfaction, including the substantial number of lawsuits the city faces and the sizable payouts the made in settling several of those in recent months and years, as well as the ocasionally-prickly personal relations between Carvalho and some members of the council. Within the last year, Carvalho has made open public statements generically calling the honesty and forthcomingness of some members of the council into question without specifically naming who those council members are, throwing something of a pall over the entire panel. Moreover, there is a testy relationship between Ortiz and Carvalho, as Ortiz has been outspokenly critical of the council as a whole and has from time to time been equally critical of Carvalho. Carvalho, for her part, has given as good as she has gotten, on one occasion during a council meeting stating that Ortiz “comes here… to knowingly and maliciously make false statements in this chamber.”
There is concern that when Ortiz assumes her spot on the council dais in December, the hostility between her and Carvalho might create a personality conflict that will compromise the quality of the legal advice Carvalho and her firm will be providing the city.
Early in the week prior to the November 20 meeting, Tran and Clayton, who as city manager has the authority to order up what is to be placed on the city council’s meeting agendas, instructed City Clerk Geneveva Rocha an item terminating Carvalho as city attorney and ending the city’s contract for legal services with her law firm, Best Best & Kriger, which would have the added effect of bringing about the termination of Assistant City Attorney Thomas Rice; Deputy Attorney Jason Baltimore; Elizabeth Hall, who is advising the city with regard to the disposition of the Inland Center Mall property; and Albert Maldonado, who advises the planning commission, all of whom are Best Best & Krieger partners or associates.
Friday, November 15, without consulting either Tran or Clayton, Carvalho instructed Rocha to schedule the city council to carry out an evaluation of her own job performance during the November 20 meeting’s closed session. Rocha, who normally defers to the city manager with regard to what items are to be placed on the agenda, phone Clayton but failed to reach her. She then sent Clayton an email and a text message, asking whether she should comply with Carvalho’s insistence that her performance evaluation be included among the items for closed session the agenda. When Rocha did not receive a response from Clayton, she made a command decision on her own to do as she had been told by Carvalho before the agenda was posted on November 15.
When the November 20 city council meeting began just at 5:05 p.m. with its usual formalities and public comments scheduled before its members were set to adjourn into closed session, neither Clayton nor Carvalho present. Preemptively, Mayor Tran announced that she was using her mayoral prerogative to remove Carvalho’s performance evaluation from the list of matters to be discussed in closed session.
Saying “It was wholly inappropriate for the city attorney to place her own item on the closed session agenda without following the proper process,” Tran asserted, “This decision is rooted in established guidelines of our city charter and council procedure, which clearly state that only the mayor, the city manager or a majority of the city council are authorized to place items on the agenda. The city attorney does not have the unilateral authority to add items to our agenda.”
Tran said in making the adjustment, she was seeking to “adhere to the rules to maintain public trust and ensure the integrity of our governance.”
Councilman Shorett at that point piped up, confronting Tran, saying that it was improper for the council to proceed with the meeting without the city manager and city attorney present. He further criticized Tran for challenging the city attorney’s action without Carvalho being present, an indication he falls within Carvalho’s camp rather than Clayton’s. When Shorett stood to walk away from the dais, saying he would not participate in what was happening, Councilman Sanchez made a motion for the council to recess, which was supported by Ibarra, Figueroa, Shorett and Alexander. A short time later, after Clayton and Carvalho came into the chamber and took their place at the staff table in front of the council, Shorett asked the mayor to repeat the statement she had made earlier with regard to the city attorney and removing the performance review item from the schedule of matters to be discussed in closed session. Tran did so.
Shorett then grilled Clayton about whether she had placed the city attorney performance review item on the closed session agenda. When Clayton indicated she had not placed the matter onto the agenda, Shorett sharply questioned her about whether she had control of the agenda. Clayton said that because she was tied up in meetings the previous Friday, she did not realize Carvalho’s performance evaluation was contained in agenda until after it had been posted and it was too late to remove it.
After hearing public comments with regard to the issues to be discussed in closed session, the council then adjourned into the executive session, which took place behind closed doors and outside the earshot and scrutiny of the public. The council returned to the council dais for the meeting’s open public session at 5:05 p.m. Shortly thereafter, Carvalho reported that no reportable action had taken place during the closed session.
The public session item relating to the possible termination of the city attorney and her law firm was the last item on that evening’s agenda except the informal opportunity given to the council to update the public on issues or events the individual members have recently participated in. Once the ceremonial matters at the top of the agenda were out of the way, Councilman Sanchez sought to have the matter relating to Carvalho and her firm discussed first, before any of the action items that were on the agenda ahead of it were discussed, considered or voted upon. As the council was being polled on whether there was support for Sanchez’s motion, Councilman Alexander issued an alternative motion, which under Robert’s Rules of Order must be considered and voted upon prior to the original motion.
“I’d like to make a friendly amendment that we postpone this until the new council comes aboard,” he said. Sanchez then readjusted to the direction Alexander was heading in, making a motion to “table the item.” In parliamentary parlance, table means to postpone or suspend consideration of a pending matter or action. The vote on the tabling motion passed 4-to-3 with Sanchez, Ibarra, Shorett and Alexander voting for it and Figueroa, Reynoso and Calvin opposed. Mayor Tran then sought to veto the action, based upon the mayor’s authority to veto any action which does not pass with at least five votes when all seven council members participate. There followed then a spirited dispute, led by Sanchez and Shorett, as to the mayor’s authority to exercise a veto on what they defined as a procedural matter, their position being that the mayor’s veto authority extends only to votes on legislative actions. With Tran insisting, in her capacity as the presiding officer, that her veto authority is absolute in both legislative and procedural contexts, Carvalho, as the ultimate legal authority at the meeting, leapt into the breach, stating that the mayor could veto a legislative act but that “As I have opined in the past, a procedural act is not subject to a veto,” referencing “Rosenberg’s Rules of Order.”
Sanchez then sought to move on, presuming the issue had been decided in the 4-to-3 council majority’s favor and that the discussion of the city attorney’s termination had been removed from the agenda. The mayor, however, disputed that and when City Clerk Geneveva Rocha clarified that the vote had gone 4-to-3 in favor of tabling the item, and that “The city attorney just explained that you can’t veto a procedural motion.”
At that point, Councilman Reynoso weighed in, seeking chapter in verse with regard to the limitations on the mayor’s veto power.
“Can you read the line, Madam City Attorney?” Reynoso asked. “I’d like to hear where it states that [the mayor cannot veto votes on procedural matters] in Robert’s Rules [of Order]. I’d like to hear it read out loud into the public record.”
Carvalho, confidently intoning that such was the case, said, “Okay. If you’ll just give me a moment, I’ll go ahead and pull up the charter provision.” She suggested that the council move on with the other items on the agenda while she did so.
After the council moved through all of the intervening items on the agenda, Tran vectored the council to Item 21, the discussion with regard to the potential termination of the city attorney and her law firm. Tran led into the matter by inquiring about what Carvalho had found with regard to the extent of mayoral veto authority.
Carvalho, however, was either unable or unwilling to cite any passage within the city charter that prohibits the mayor from entering a veto on procedural matters.
“So, mayor and council, I just want to tell you that back in June of 2023, this very issue of whether the mayor can veto a motion came up, and the council at that time proceeded with the practice that the mayor could not veto the motion of parliamentary procedure. I can just tell you that was the past action that was taken.”
“So, you are saying we did it one time and you are operating from precedent?” Reynoso asked.
“I have on at least, one, two three, four, five occasions, since being city attorney sent memoranda to the city council and individual council members my research, beginning with [former City Councilman] Jim Mulvihill all the way to the last time with a memo to the mayor in June of ‘23 on the issues of veto. But what I can tell you right now is I am not prepared to provide legal advice to you in this instance in a matter that directly impacts an item that I have on the agenda. I think, in reflection as I was looking at these items, it is not proper for me to give you advice on an issue – even though I believe it is procedural and even though I have personally consulted with my own legal counsel and special counsel from Sacramento who has advised me that I can advise on process and procedure I think it is best to not even create appearance of an impropriety. So, it will be up to you whether you want to table this item or not.”
Tran then pressed Carvalho on what the charter said about her veto power.
“As I mentioned, I am not prepared to give you legal advice on this issue.”
Strengthened by Carvalho’s failure to provide the previously promised basis for disallowing her veto to stand, Tran proceeded with the item, and as the presiding officer over the meeting was able to push past and overcome the objections of Sanchez and Shorett.
The Sentinel is reliably informed that Calvin had generated a memo containing 18 separate points of rationale for discontinuing the city’s relationship with Carvalho and Best Best & Krieger which had been provided to the mayor and her council colleagues prior to the meeting. Clayton likewise, according to two well-placed sources with the city, produced a memo in which she made an evaluation of city operations, concluding with her recommendation that the city terminate its relationship with Carvalho and Best Best & Krieger. Those memos were not contained in the packet of documents accompanying the agenda, but provided the basis for at least some of the interaction of the council during its discussion, though the public was unaware of the memo’s substance and the council did not delve into any specifics relating to the law firm’s or Carvalho’s performance. Another less than publicly visible factor in the discussion was that certain influential elements of the community, like Beard, are similarly inclined in support of Clayton and against Carvalho. Those include the San Bernardino Police Officers Association and San Bernardino Police Management Association.
Tran sought to usher the city council toward avoiding a highly revelatory exposé of the reasons for terminating Carvalho in which the city’s dirty linen would be washed in public, instead suggesting that the city simply terminate the contract with Best Best & Krieger without giving any reason for doing so, as is permitted under the city’s contract for services with the law firm and its attorneys.
“This is an agenda item of significant importance, the potential termination of the city attorney’s contract and the appointment of an interim city attorney,” Tran said. “The role of the city attorney is essential in maintaining the legal integrity of our city’s operation and upholding public trust. While many have raised concerns regarding our current city attorney, I am committed to transparency and fairness. This item’s on the open session agenda and making open complaints and allegations from the dais against the city attorney are not appropriate. Fortunately, there is no need to engage in that here. The city attorney’s contract may be terminated by the city without cause and without any severance [i.e., termination payout to Best Best & Krieger or any of its attorneys, including Carvalho]. We only need to vote to direct the city manager to submit the termination notice, and that is the motion I am seeking from the city council.”
Calvin made such a motion, which was seconded by Reynoso. Before voting on the motion could take place, Sanchez made a substitute motion, calling for the tabling of the item. Shorett seconded Sanchez’s motion and a vote on it was taken, with Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa, Shorett and Alexander in support, thus veto-proofing the tabling of the item.
Tran reacted, saying, “The council has made its decision. The public: I wanted you to see this and hear this. While I respect the process, I must be candid: This is not the outcome I believe is in the best interest of the City of San Bernardino. I firmly believe that a change in leadership within the city attorney’s office were necessary to restore trust, improve fiscal accountability and ensure the legal guidance our city needs to move forward effectively.”
Tran added, “What you have seen today has been sparked by instability. I’ve been a mayor for two years, with four city managers: instability. What has been a constant, the root? The city attorney attorney’s advice has created instability.” Tran addressed Carvalho directly, telling her, “You’ve been controlling the city.”
At the end of the meeting, during the opportunity extended to the individual council members to update the community and make general and specific announcements and statements, Calvin said, “Everyone on this dais is quite aware of the conflicts of interest that some of our council members have with our city attorney’s office and where that has led us.”
“This is outrageous,” Shorett interjected.
“Of course it is,” Calvin said.
“That’s slander,” Shorett said.
“It’s not slander at all,” Calvin said. She then addressed the public.“I’m talking to you because my colleagues have been informed, I’ve shared, they have shared, we’ve all been witness, but it is their choice, their decision to continue to do what they are doing currently. I’ve sat on this dais for four years and I’ve watched my colleagues uphold very unethical acts that they have participated and colluded in, which is why they’re making the dision they are making tonight. The city attorney can only do what they allow.”
Calvin singled out Shorett and Sanchez as bearing the brunt of her assertions.
Calvin, alluding to her memo cataloging the reasons Carvalho and her firm should be let go, accused the council of withholding information from the public. They all are in receipt of what I believe [justified the termination of the city attorney]. As a council member I do have the right to send any type of email, any information that I want them to take knowledge of and note of, I have that right and I’ve exercised that right. But it is up to them to make the right decision and the vote. But when you don’t even want to question what you are in receipt of, that is where you should have no faith, no belief in what this council is proposing. I am very sorry, I am extremely sorry that your council has failed you.”
Ibarra referenced Calvin’s memo, saying she had received it while she was attending the National League of Cities conference in Florida last week, as did the remainder of her council colleagues. She did not focus on the contents of the memo, but suggested that its distribution to the entirety of the council was an effort to form a council consensus outside the forum of an agendized public meeting to fire Carvalho and her firm, which she interpreted as a violation of the Brown Act, California’s open public meeting law.
“While we were in the conference, we were getting emails from my colleague in the Sixth Ward, blindcopying us. A couple of months ago we were accused of holding illegal serial meetings – Brown Act violations. Now, if you are blindcopying all your colleagues and the mayor, including them in your conversation of accusations you’re making toward an appointed position and requesting a special meeting, that is a violation of the Brown Act itself.”
Reynoso said that Tran and Calvin had tried “to do the right thing. I am very sorry that we weren’t able to do everything possible to make it better on our way out.” I’ll be honest in saying to you that I’ve been lied to so many times. My skin is thicker than its ever been in my entire life, and I came in here with thick skin. I’m sorry that I leave here more callous than I want to.”
While the parliamentary maneuvering prevented a vote with regard to Carvalho’s and her law firm’s continued tenures with the city, the discussion insofar as it went revealed that Sanchez and Shorett are in Carvalho’s camp, Mayor Tran, Councilman Reynoso and Councilwoman Calvin are in Clayton’s camp and that council members Ibarra, Figueroa and Alexander occupied the middle ground, with Alexander determined to let the city council as it will be composed after he, Calvin and Reynoso leave next month, make the determination with regard to whether Clayton and/or Carvalho should stay or go.
Reynoso suggested that once Knaus, Flores and Ortiz are installed, Carvalho’s days with San Bernardino will soon draw to a close.
“I am confident that the incoming council members will have the will and the backbone and the truth and the foresight, knowledge from previous councils, just seeing what is laid in front of them, to do the right thing,” he said. “This is a city that deserves so much more.”
The Sentinel has learned that the city council has retained a consulting firm to carry out an “independent” evaluation of the performance and professional function of Clayton, Carvalho and City Clerk Rocha. It is anticipated that company’s report will be completed sometime early next year, giving the council as it will then be composed the basis on which to carry out its own closed door evaluation of the three women, and reach a conclusion with regard to the city’s staff leadership going forward.
-Mark Gutglueck