The circumstance at Yucaipa City Hall over the last two years has consisted of what one insider described, in retrospect as “an administrative cul-de-sac.”
That assessment was made in the aftermath of the city council, at its last meeting in February, approving a request for proposals for a replacement city attorney, and a lengthy closed session on March 3 which concluded with 3-to-1 vote to place City Manager Chris Mann on paid administrative leave.
Both Mann and current City Attorney Steven Graham Pacifico were hired under extraordinary circumstances in January 2023 which generated what, for Yucaipa, was an uncommon degree of controversy that spawned recall efforts against three members of the city council, one of which ultimately proved successful.
The contretemps that ensued from the 2023 city manager/city attorney changeover triggered a level of political/governmental instability in Yucaipa that theretofore had never existed. At present, all five of the city council members, the city manager, the city attorney and the city clerk are different personages than those who held those titles five years ago. Previously and throughout Yucaipa’s first 31 years as an incorporated municipality from 1989 until 2020, the city had been remarkably stable, one characterized by consistency among its elected leadership and staff leadership.
In 2020, the council consisted of then-Mayor David Avila, who had been on the city council since 2014, Dick Riddell, who had been on the city council since 1996; Denise Hoyt, who had been on the city council since 2004; Greg Bogh who had been on the city council since 2010, and Bobby Duncan, who had been on the city council since 2012. The city manager was Ray Casey, who had been city manager since 2008. The city attorney was David Snow, who had held that post since 2012. That November, four years after the city had switched from its traditional at-large elections to by-district contests to choose its city council members, Duncan had achieved reelection in District 3, Holt had opted out of seeking reelection in District 4 and Jon Thorp was elected to serve in her place. Riddell was turned out of office by challenger Justin Beaver in District 5.
Two years later, Avila and Bogh chose not to seek reelection in District 1 and 2, respectively. At the final city council meeting in October 2022, in an effort to cement their political legacies, Avila and Bogh pressed their council colleagues to approve an extension of Casey’s contract as city manager until the end of June 2024. They reasoned that the Princeton-educated Casey, who had previously been Yucaipa’s city engineer/public works director and at that point had been city manager for 14 years, had proven himself to be an ideal match for the city. They wanted to ensure that whoever succeeded them would have an opportunity to see for themselves Casey’s level of expertise and competence, and they calculated that perpetuating his contract for more than a year after the newly composed council was in place would give Casey an opportunity to illustrate to the new members his value to the city and result in a possible extension of his management of the city if he did not choose to retire at that point. On October 24, 2022, the council unanimously approved the 20-month extension of Casey’s contract. Fifteen days later, on November 8, 2024, Matt Garner was elected from among four candidates to replace Avila as councilman in District 1 and Chris Venable came out on top in a two-person contest to take Bogh’s position representing District 2.
The following month, Beaver, who had been in office since 2020, was selected mayor. Councilman Duncan, who had been mayor in the past, was made mayor pro tem. With the December holiday season coming thereafter, the second council meeting for December 2022, which would have been held on December 26, was canceled.
On January 9, 2023, at what was the second public meeting of the newly composed city council and the first council meeting of the year, the vast majority of the Yucaipa community was blindsided when Garner joined with Mayor Beaver and Duncan in confronting City Manager Ray Casey during the closed session that preceded that evening’s open public session of the council. Beaver and Duncan informed Casey that if he did not tender his resignation immediately, he would be ignominiously terminated, as they had Garner’s vote to hand him a pink slip. With no better option available, Casey, reluctantly, resigned
A vote was taken to accept Casey’s resignation, which passed by a margin of 3-to-2, with Beaver, Duncan and Garner prevailing and Councilman Thorp and the recently elected and installed Venable dissenting. The council then voted 5-to-0 to terminate City Attorney David Snow.
At that point, Steven Graham, the city attorney with the City of Canyon Lake in Riverside County, materialized and began functioning as Yucaipa’s city attorney. The council thereupon voted 4-to-1, with Thorp dissenting, to offer the position of city manager to Chris Mann, who at that time was the city manager of Canyon Lake, a Yucaipa resident, a member of the Yucaipa Water District Board of Directors and the principal in Mann Communications. Mann, like Graham, had been present on the civic center grounds throughout the meeting.
Nearly two score Yucaipa residents who had been alerted at the last minute that something was in the offing had shown up at the meeting, several of whom had hoped to be able to talk the council out of getting rid of Casey. The crowd’s efforts at intercession had been to no avail, and Casey abruptly joined the ranks of the unemployed or retired or both.
There were multiple grounds for the public’s discomfiture.
One of those was that the October 24, 2022 unanimous vote of the council to extend Casey’s contract until June 2024, which granted Casey a 3 percent salary increase that jumped his yearly salary to $299,420, such that he was making $422,901.50 in total annual compensation, putting him among the 25 highest-paid city managers in California, was widely taken throughout Yucaipa as an indication that Casey’s service to the city was well-appreciated and that the council members collectively wanted him to remain in place. The community had taken Beaver and Duncan at their word in October when they joined with Avila, Bogh and Thorp in their praise of Casey.
Moreover, in his campaign for the District 1 position throughout the previous summer and fall, Garner had made no mention whatsoever of his dissatisfaction with Casey’s performance as city manager or that he had any intent of dispensing with him upon assuming office.
What was unknown to everyone in Yucaipa other than a small circle consisting of Beaver, Duncan and Garner and those close to them in the fall and early winter of 2022 was that there was a hidden agenda at play during the run-up to the election and its immediate aftermath.
Beaver and Duncan were displeased with Casey’s performance and had been for some time. They were aware, however, that Bogh and Avila sharply differed with them in their assessment of Casey, and that Thorp, who had been on the city council since 2020, would side with Avila and Bogh. For that reason, at the October 24, 2022 meeting, they had gone along with the majority to extend Casey’s contract, not wanting to prematurely reveal what they were planning.
While the Brown Act, California’s open public meeting law, prohibits a quorum – meaning three or more of a five-member panel such as the Yucaipa City Council – from discussing any public issues to be decided by those members in their elected capacities outside the public forum of an agendized meeting, that law did not prevent Beaver and Duncan, as a minority of the council, from talking over and coming to a consensus between themselves regarding what they felt about the city manager and whether he should remain with the city. Nor were they restricted from discussing their feelings or intentions with anyone else who was not on the council, and that included prospective members of the council such as Garner and the others who were running for the District 1 or District 2 council positions. While it is not known whether Beaver and Duncan made any overtures to those candidates, including Venable, it is now common knowledge that the two councilmen were dialoguing with Garner prior to the election. Garner signaled to Beaver and Duncan that he was prepared to jettison Casey if he were to succeed in his race.
When Garner was elected, but before he was sworn in in December, he reiterated in his contact with Beaver and Duncan that he was on board with tossing Casey from Yucaipa’s ship of state just as soon as he was in place to do so.
There was, however, a technicality that would prevent an early activation of the plan to remove Casey. A provision that had been placed into the Yucaipa Municipal Code was that “The city manager shall not be removed from office, other than for misconduct in office, during or within a period of ninety days next succeeding any general municipal election.” As such, the earliest the city council could have acted to fire Casey would have been 8:01 p.m. on February 3, 2023.
Beaver and Duncan, however, were determined to strike while the iron was hot and before Casey or anyone else would have an opportunity to dissuade Garner or compromise the resolve the trio had to move Casey out of the Yucaipa City Hall executive suite.
Diane Smith, a pillar of the Yucaipa community who was a member of the planning commission and later the city council, is and has been extremely knowledgeable about issues within the city, often having in-depth information about events of significance at City Hall and elsewhere within the city’s 28.3-square mile confines before they occur.
On December 31, 2022, at a New Year’s Eve get-together, Smith buttonholed Duncan, inquiring about rumors she had heard to the effect that Casey’s days in Yucaipa were numbered. Duncan, recognizing that if he were to prevaricate with Smith his credibility thereafter would be forever damaged, told her that Beaver at the then-upcoming January 9, 2023 council meeting was going to ask Casey for his resignation or that he immediately retire. If Casey refused, Beaver was prepared to play his trump card, which consisted of his vote linked with Duncan’s and Garner’s to fire him, even if they had to wait until the following month to do so.
It thus appears that Casey, who had previously expected to remain as city manager at least until 2024 and reportedly some three years beyond that, was aware before going into the January 9, 2023 meeting that his head was about to roll. Recognizing that his hand was being forced, he ultimately resigned, but not without a concession that the city would honor the commitment made in the October 24, 2022 contract extension to pay him his annual $299,420 salary until the end of June 2024.
It has since been reported that during the closed session “one hell of an argument” broke out between, on one side, Beaver and Duncan, and, on the other, Thorp, while Garner remained silent but stood by the mayor and mayor pro tem, with Venable taken aback by the whole scene.
Among the roughly 40 Yucaipa residents who had come to the meeting were several who went on the record, after the closed session was concluded, as supporting Casey. That had no appreciable impact in convincing the council to reverse course by rescinding its action.
With Graham functioning as city attorney, the council thereafter voted 4-to-1, with Thorp dissenting, to offer the position of city manager to Mann.
For a substantial cross section of the Yucaipa community, including members of the traditional establishment and its old guard, the events of January 9 were upsetting and disillusioning.
With Mann and Graham on hand for the meeting and Graham assuming the role of city attorney on the spot without any forewarning, there were immediate accusations that a violation of the Brown Act had taken place.
The Brown Act requires that any substantive action taken by an elected or appointed governmental body be advertised to the public in a publicly posted agenda 72 hours in advance.
Residents who were opposed to what was tantamount to Casey’s sacking reasoned that a Brown Act violation had to have taken place, as Graham was on hand for the meeting, waiting in the wings at City Hall, before he was hired as city attorney and, likewise, Mann was immediately present, reportedly waiting in his car in the civic center parking lot, in anticipation of the action the council ultimately took.
The council majority would eventually form a response to the Brown Act violation accusation that held no such violation had occurred since the collusion with regard to Casey’s forced exit and Snow’s firing had taken place prior to Garner being sworn in as a member of the city council, such that when that plotting took place, the three did not constitute a quorum.
Further, the council majority and their defenders rejected the claim that Casey’s sacking violated the municipal code section that related to not firing the city manager during the 90-day period after an election. They pointed out that Casey had resigned and had not been terminated by council action.
For those upset at Casey’s departure, those defenses were ones that relied on distinctions without differences and constituted an admission of duplicity on the part of the three, given Beaver’s and Duncan’s October 23 vote to extend Casey’s contract and Garner’s failure to inform the community of his intention with regard to the city manager prior to his election.
Moreover, many Yucaipa residents, had come to believe that installing Mann, whose company, Mann Communications, serves as a mouthpiece for the development industry, was a harbinger of a wave of aggressive development to consist of “stack and pack” subdivision after subdivision being approved by the newly-formed council majority that would make Yucaipa indistinguishable from scores of other cities in Southern California that are now composed, practically, of wall-to-wall houses.
Adding insult to injury, a band of Yucaipa residents maintained, was that in its haste to get rid of Casey and put Mann in place, the council troika had created a circumstance in which the city was double-paying for the services of a city manager. In addition to the $220,130.80 in annual salary, $8,181.81 in pay add-ons and perks, and $44,134.19 in benefits for a total annual compensation of $272,446.8 that the city was paying to Mann to serve as the city’s top administrator, it was paying a $299,420 salary to Casey. Those city residents were baffled at why, if Beaver, Duncan and Garner were so set on getting rid of Casey and hiring Mann, they didn’t wait to make the transition at mid-year 2024, when the city’s contractual obligation with Casey was set to draw to a close.
A recall committee formed, and some 193 city residents lent their names as sponsors of the effort, with 62 residents of District 4 signing the notice of the intention to circulate the recall petition against Justin A. Beaver, 67 residents of District 3 signing the notice of the intention to circulate the recall petition against Bobby Dean Duncan and 64 residents of District 1 signing the notice of the intention to circulate the recall petition against Councilmember Matthew Gabriel Garner.
Reasons given for seeking the recall against each of the three were that they had acted to terminate Casey and had violated the Brown Act in doing so.
In the aftermath of Casey’s departure and the hiring of Mann, Mann replaced the city clerk who had been in place under Casey, Kimberly Metzler, with his own choice, that being Ana Sauseda, whom he had previously promoted to city clerk when she was employed at the City of Canyon Lake, from which he had departed to become Yucaipa’s city manager.
To protect his political masters on the city council, Mann formulated a strategy of hiring the Los Angeles-based Sutton Law Firm, using city money, to represent Sauseda as a plaintiff, acting in her capacity as the city’s chief elections officer, in a lawsuit challenging the validity of the recall effort.
Two of the Sutton Firm’s attorneys, Bradley W. Hertz and Eli B. Love, filed a writ of mandate on Sauseda’s behalf, asserting that the stated grounds for the recall of Garner, Duncan and Beaver were false and misleading, since the recall proponents could not prove their allegation that a Brown Act violation had occurred with the forced departure of Casey, and the recall proponents’ separate accusations against Beaver, Duncan and Garner that each had acted to terminate Casey and Snow was not true since no single one of them had such authority and the actions to relieve Casey of his city manager’s post and fire Snow were ones taken collectively by the entire city council body.
The lawsuit was presented as adhering to a recently passed law, AB 2584, allowing Sauseda to contest the accuracy of the stated grounds for a recall. Sauseda’s suit was filed against all 193 of the recall proponents.
To augment that effort, Mann had Joseph Pradetto, whom he had hired to serve as Yucaipa’s director of governmental affairs and official spokesperson, intensify the intimidation level against the recall proponents. Pradetto, in trumpeting to the Yucaipa community that the recall proponents were being sued by the city clerk, publicly stated, “In addition to the provisions of AB 2584, Sauseda also cautions recall proponents that, ‘Per Elections Code section 18600, it is a misdemeanor offense to circulate or obtain signatures on a recall petition that intentionally misrepresent (sic) or make (sic) false statements.’”
Faced with the distraction of the lawsuit and stood off by Pradetto’s threat to have them jailed for persisting with the recall effort, recall proponents fell far short of gathering, by the August 16, 2023 deadline, the minimal 1,826 valid signatures from among District 1’s 7,303 registered voters to qualify a ballot item on recalling Garner, the minimal 1,478 valid signatures of the 5,912 registered voters in District 3 to qualify a ballot item on recalling Duncan and the minimal 1,623 valid signatures from among the 6,492 registered voters in District 4 to qualify a vote on recalling Beaver.
The ploy of having the Sutton Law Firm prepare the writ of mandate and getting Sauseda to serve as the plaintiff had succeeded in staving off the recall effort. It also had the incidental effect of preserving Mann’s, Graham’s, Sauseda’s and Pradetto’s positions with the city, since the removal of Garner, Duncan and Beaver from the council would have very likely resulted in their replacement by three officeholders hostile to the new ruling coalition’s agenda, which the recently brought-in city manager, city attorney, city clerk and city spokesman were militating so energetically to implement.
Some of the recall proponents were so intimidated by having been dragged into court and by Pradetto’s threat of having them prosecuted that they simply wanted to desist and bug out, so to avoid expense and what was in essence an empty threat that they would potentially be jailed. Some were less intimidated than they were fed up with the complication the effort and the circumstance entailed, and they merely sought to move on with their lives.
Others, however, were neither daunted nor dissuaded, and remained committed to redressing what they saw as a miscarriage of governance growing out of an illegal series of events that the council majority had engaged in with the assistance of Mann and Graham before the fact and with the connivance of Hertz, Love, Sauseda and Pradetto after the fact. A handful of them retained James Penman, who had been the San Bernardino City Attorney for more than a quarter of a century, as their legal representative.
From the outset of the litigation, the clock was running on the Sutton Law Firm’s billing of the city for Hertz’s and Love’s legal work. Having achieved the goal of thwarting the recall, Beaver, Duncan, Garner, Mann, Graham, Sauseda, Hertz and Love were purposed to simply dismiss the lawsuit.
However, with Penman representing some of the defendants, city officials – in particular Sauseda, Graham and Mann – faced the unpleasant prospect of the city being in the position of having to pay not only for the Sutton Firm’s legal work but the lawyers’ fees the defendants in the case had sustained if the matter were to be dismissed on a motion by the plaintiff. Moreover, simply dismissing the case with the demise of the recall effort would be construed by virtually anyone looking at the totality of the circumstance that the lawsuit was merely a manipulation of the legal system to interrupt the recall effort. Consequently, Sauseda refrained from dismissing the suit, and for more than four months, from September through October, November, December 2023 and to the end of January 2024, the matter dragged on, costing the taxpayers and the defendants money.
In the meantime, through Penman, several of the defendants pushed to contest the allegations in the lawsuit and to have it dismissed on its merits or lack thereof.
Paralleling that was a so-called SLAPP motion by one of the defendants, Colleen Wang, who had been one of the 64 signatories of the intent to circulate a recall petition against Garner document. A SLAPP motion, which argues that a given lawsuit is a strategic lawsuit against public participation, is a request by a defendant in a civil action for a finding that the cause of action cited in a lawsuit against him or her is activity that is a form of protected free speech or activity protected under the U.S. or California constitutions which is therefore not actionable, i.e., subject to being legally contested. In Wang’s case, it was her assertion that in signing on to the recall effort, she was engaging in action to seek redress of grievance using a methodology preserved for her and other citizens under the law, namely recalling an elected official from office, the process for which is outlined in the California Government Code.
Some of the recall proponents had also lodged a complaint with the San Bernardino County Civil Grand Jury based upon the issue that had sparked the recall effort, that being the termination of Casey with virtually no warning followed by the hiring of Mann without any sort of competitive recruitment process for the city manager post in a way that appeared to have been a violation of the Brown Act.
Ultimately, in its end-of-the-2023-calendar-year report, the grand jury, while avoiding delving into the issue of whether a Brown Act violation had occurred or not, delivered its findings with regard to the way the city council majority, tolerated by the remainder of the city council, had jettisoned Casey less than three months after having extended his contract 20 months.
According to the grand jury, “[T]he council immediately replaced the city manager with its pre-selected choice. The council didn’t require applicant vetting; indeed, it didn’t require any applicants at all. The council didn’t interview other qualified applicants; there were no other applicants to be considered for such an important decision. Even before the city council vote, the soon-to-be appointed new city manager (and city attorney) waited in the parking lot outside the council chambers, to be called into the meeting and introduced to the council. These city council actions blindsided many residents; their outrage followed, soon to be fueled by additional questionable actions. Many Yucaipa citizens are incensed. They do not believe the city council demonstrated adequate concern for their objections…[and] believe that the council acted with a lack of transparency when it replaced the former city manager and city attorney, with pre-selected people, without much notice to or input from the community.”
The grand jury observed that with the recall effort having failed, the judge hearing the lawsuit brought by Sauseda concluded that the matter being litigated “is deemed moot.”
Despite that, the grand jury noted that Sauseda continued pursuing the lawsuit, which the grand jury said was perpetuating the community’s distrust of city government.
“As of the writing of this report, the office of the city clerk had not agreed to dismiss the petition for writ of mandate, despite the fact that the judge deemed the matter moot,” the grand jury stated. “Nevertheless, the Office of the Yucaipa City Clerk, with retained counsel, decided to move forward with the lawsuit. If the city clerk’s office continues on this path, Yucaipa likely will spend thousands of dollars in attorney fees and the defendants, residents who had signed the recall petitions, may spend thousands more on their own attorney fees. These actions may further erode the public trust and the Yucaipa City Council itself must share some of the blame. Since the new council term began, the Yucaipa City Council has developed a reputation among many residents of ignoring the concerns of the public and of fostering an atmosphere of mistrust, disdain, anger, resentment, lack of transparency and appearances of conflicts of interest.”
In responding to the grand jury report, then-Mayor Justin Beaver seized upon that body stopping short of making any finding of criminal wrongdoing to state, “After nearly an entire year of public upset and scrutiny, the county civil grand jury has confidently declared our city council violated no laws.”
On January 31, 2024, Judge Michael Sachs, who oversaw the lawsuit filed by Sauseda against the 193 Yucaipa residents, entered a ruling in favor of the defendants and simultaneously granted Wang’s SLAPP motion against Sauseda and the City of Yucaipa, allowing attorney fees to be awarded, and finding that the grounds for the recall were truthful.
Judge Sachs stated from the bench, “In my humble opinion, she [Sauseda] could have avoided this. The city could have avoided incurring costs. The respondents who are essentially exercising their constitutional rights, would not have had to incur costs. And this seems to me to be a waste of funds, both public funds and private funds.”
According to Judge Sachs, Wang had established that she, like the other recall proponent defendants, was acting in the capacity of a citizen seeking to apply her constitutional rights by trying to qualify a recall measure.
“All this particular respondent did was sign the recall petition,” Judge Sachs propounded, “She [Colleen Wang] also states after reviewing the petition and agreeing the content matched her own impressions, she added a signature and authorized submission of the paperwork. On May 18, 2023, petitioner [City Clerk Sauseda] sent a letter informing the proponents she had approved and accepted the proposed petition in all but one respect. That one respect was as follows: ‘that the statements of the grounds for the recall contain false and or misleading information,’ closed quotes. At the end of that letter, the petitioner notified each of the proponents that she had commenced the lawsuit. [R]egarding the arguments, it’s pretty clear to the court the arguments being made by the respondents [recall proponents] are that they were exercising their civil rights, that they did not assert anything that was false or untrue.”
In the spring of 2023, when Sauseda, represented by Hertz and Love – whose services were being paid for with taxpayer money, the expenditure of which was approved during a closed session vote by Beaver, Duncan and Garner – filed for the writ of mandate, there were immediate accusations that the concept of the lawsuit had not originated with her but had instead been cooked up by Mann and Graham as part of an effort to insulate Beaver, Duncan and Garner. That was met by denials that Mann and Graham had put Sauseda up to the filing of the suit and eventual assertions from Sauseda that the lawsuit was her brainchild.
An individual close to Sauseda has said she has on multiple occasions privately acknowledged she was instructed to serve as the plaintiff in the writ of mandate.
In January 2024, a cadre of die-hards within the city’s District 1 recommitted themselves to seeing Garner removed from office. Without interference from City Hall, they were able to get 25 percent of the registered voters in the district to sign a recall petition against Garner. Thus, a vote to remove him was placed on the ballot for the November 5, 2024 election.
The voters in District 1, both through mail-in ballots and at the polls on November 5 voted in favor of removing Garner from office with 3,527 votes or 65.73 percent supporting his recall and 1,839 votes or 34.27 percent opposed. Garner was thus forced from his council position less than two years after he was installed with his December 2022 swearing-in.
In a deviation from the way recall elections are normally conducted, the voters in District 1 on November 5, 2024 did not participate in a parallel election to determine Garner’s replacement.
Duncan decided against seeking reelection in District 3 in the 2024 election cycle, and Judy Woolsey proved to be the top vote-getter in the race to replace him. Beaver vied successfully for reelection in District 5. Thorp, seeking reelection in District 4, drew no opposition and was returned to office.
The council in December voted to elevate Yucaipa-Calimesa School District Member Bob Miller, who was formerly the police chief in Colton and is now retired, to replace Garner.
A wide cross section of the community in 2023 had been stirred up by the Casey sacking. While Beaver, Duncan, Garner, Mann, Graham, Sauseda and their supporters repeatedly pressed the argument that Casey, technically, had not been terminated but had resigned, that argument fell flat when the circumstances were given full scrutiny. Casey had not jumped or merely fell, but had been pushed if he had not in fact actually been bound up and thrown from the roof of City Hall, it was recognized. And while the vast majority of Yucaipa’s 53,947 residents were essentially unaware of what had occurred or so apathetic as to not really care, the reality – and dilemma for Beaver as the sole remaining member of the troika that had cashiered Casey – was that of the roughly 1,500 to 1,800 of the city’s residents who were aware and did care, very few approved of what had occurred. Well in excess of more than a thousand of the city’s residents – composing a substantial number of the city’s most civically active residents – disapproved of the January 9, 2023 coup.
The 193 original recall proponents, their families, a good number of their friends and those within their circle – estimated at more than 600 Yucaipa residents – did not just simply take a dim view of what had occurred but were sharply resentful of the tactics employed by Beaver, Duncan, Garner, Mann, Graham, Sauseda, Pradetto, Hertz and Love. That resentment represented a force that had to be reckoned with.
Added to that, both Thorp and Venable had been brushed, or more accurately knocked, to the side when Casey and Snow had been given the bum’s rush, which could not have gone unregistered with them as a display of disregard and disrespect. Neither had publicly protested what Beaver, Duncan and Garner had saddled them with, but Garner’s demise at the hands of the voters in November and Duncan’s withdrawal from council freed Thorp and Venable from the confines of the political fait accompli that had been imposed on them.
That political fait consisted of Mann’s primacy at City Hall. The others – Graham, Sauseda and Pradetto – were or are functions of Mann’s primacy.
It is apparent that there was on the council some level of discontent with Snow, who during his more than a decade as city attorney had made some calls that did not sit well with the council. It is not publicly known, precisely, what Snow’s mistakes consisted of, but the 5-to-0 vote to terminate him on January 9, 2023 is an indicator that there was better than a mere consensus to see him leave.
Nevertheless, Graham’s advent as city attorney came in the midst of a council meeting during which the need for his services was orchestrated as part of the contrived elevation of Mann to the city manager’s post and was effectuated without any prior public noticing or agendization. That Graham had been made privy to what was going to take place such that he and Mann were present in the City Hall parking lot to be summoned at a moment’s notice as soon as the smoke-filled backroom knifing of Casey and Snow was effectuated left an unfavorable impression on hundreds of Yucaipa residents that has not been dispelled. It has not gone unremarked, either, that the arrangements to have Sauseda file a petition for a writ of mandate challenging the veracity or accuracy of the allegations contained in the recall petitions against Garner, Duncan and Beaver were discussed and followed through on under Graham’s guidance as city attorney, and that the city expended over $100,000 on Hertz’s and Love’s legal filings aimed at thwarting the recall efforts targeting Garner, Duncan and Beaver, a use of public funds and governmental authority which Judge Sachs found so objectionable.
Likewise, Sauseda is perceived to have landed her position as clerk directly as a consequence of her loyalty to Mann. Based on what occurred during the 2023 recall effort, it has been alleged Mann brought her into Yucaipa City Hall to replace Metzler, based upon her willingness to make an exploratory, indeed experimental, use of AB 2584 in contesting the accuracy of the stated grounds for the attempted recall of Garner, Duncan and Beaver, which Judge Sachs found to be a reasonable exercise of the recall proponents’ constitutional prerogatives. Given the grand jury’s conclusions and Judge Sach’s ruling with regard to Wang’s SLAPP motion, an argument can be and has been made that instead of safeguarding the 193 recall proponents’ rights to seek via their government redress of their grievances, Sauseda thwarted them.
And many have taken an extremely unfavorable view of Pradetto’s ploy of intimidating the would-be recall petitioners by threatening to have them arrested for presenting what he implied were false assertions about the circumstances pertaining to the January 9, 2023 coup.
Despite the depth of community disapproval of the January 9, 2023 coup and what had resulted from it and as a consequence of the effort to protect Garner, Duncan and Beaver in its aftermath, there were those who believe Mann’s managerial tenure has upsides.
Though many saw progressive and sophisticated features in the Ivy League-trained Casey’s administration of Yucaipa’s municipal operations, there were some shortcomings in his approach. While he was in place, Yucaipa was one of the last of San Bernardino County cities to not televise its city council meetings. After Mann became city manager, he remedied that shortcoming.
While there are and were differing perspectives on the approach that should be taken to financing city operations and ensuring city solvency, in particular with regard to whether City Hall should balance its budget by reducing expenditures or by enhancing revenue, with regard to the latter approach Mann had greater success than did Casey.
In 2020, Mann had sought, and failed, to convince the city’s voters to pass Measure E, which called for increasing the sales tax paid by those shopping at commercial establishments by a half-cent per dollar. Yucaipa’s voters soundly turned down Measure E.
In 2024, the city went back to the voters with Measure S, which called for a full cent per dollar sales tax override in Yucaipa. Despite Measure S calling upon Yucaipa residents to reach twice as deep into their pockets than Measure E had, with Mann largely in control of the campaign on behalf of Measure S and against what appeared to be the odds, the sales tax increase was approved by Yucaipa voters in November 2024.
The November 5, 2024 election in Yucaipa in a very real way offered a referendum, or perhaps more accurately referendums, with regard to the January 9, 2023 jettisoning of Casey and hiring of Mann.
The Measure S contest stood as a test of Mann’s credibility with the electorate, whether it collectively believed his representations with regard to the city needing more money to maintain and improve services, whether those taxpayers trusted him to spend the money he was asking for judiciously and effectively and whether he was a better salesman/campaigner than Casey. In that regard, Mann did well.
The recall vote regarding Garner also asked the voters to pass judgment, in a sense, on Mann. The reason Garner was targeted for possible removal from office was, essentially, because he had forced Casey out as city manager and replaced him with Mann. The District 1 voters’ collective decision to get rid of Garner was tantamount to a vote of no confidence in Mann.
In the District 3 contest, the voters there were not given as stark of an opportunity to weigh in on the decision to hire Mann or replace Casey, as Duncan was not running. Nevertheless, the District 3 race did offer what could be seen as having some bearing on Mann’s viability for remaining as city manager. Judy Woolsey, the eventual winner, was being advised by former Yucaipa City Councilman/California Assemblyman Brett Granlund. Granlund had a positive view of Mann. Woolsey’s victory thus meant that Mann had some depth of support on the council.
In District 4, Thorp was returned to office without opposition. Thorp’s retention on the council did not bode well for Mann.
In District 5, Beaver prevailed over two challengers, including one, Kristine Mohler, a sponsor of the recall effort against Beaver and who had made an issue out of the January 9, 2023 coup during her campaign. Beaver’s continuing tenure on the council stood as a factor in Mann’s favor.
Before December 2024 was half through, at the December 9 meeting, Beaver, Thorp and Woolsey were sworn into their 2024-to-2028 terms. Attention turned to filling the gap on the council that had been created with the successful recall of Garner and the accompanying oversight of not having held an election to choose a replacement conditional upon the recall having succeeded. Ultimately, at the same December 9 meeting, a decision was made to appoint the aforementioned Bob Miller to complete Garner’s term.
It was a commonly held assumption that Mann had dodged a bullet, and he would remain as city manager for as long as he could keep from falling into disfavor with three of his political masters on the council, insofar as long as he chose to remain in the post, perhaps until retirement. Reports to that effect circulated in the media, including the Sentinel
Given the intensity of the harsh feelings toward Mann lingering in the community, confidence that he would remain in place indefinitely now appears unjustified.
Three signs that Mann is on the outs with a majority of the council surfaced earlier this year.
On the agenda for the January 13 meeting, the council’s first conclave of the year, Graham was referenced not as “Stephen Graham, City Attorney,” as in the past but as “Steven Pacifico, City Attorney.” Thereafter, Graham was continually identified with the last name Pacifico.
At the February 10 meeting, the agenda showed the council was scheduled to discuss two items in closed session with its legal counsel, those relating to the public employment and annual performance evaluations of both the city manager – Mann – and the city attorney – Graham, or Pacifico, as he is now being identified.
Mayor Thorp stated during the open session of the February 10 meeting that the upshot of the closed door discussions was that the council wanted staff to put out a request for proposals with a 30-day timeframe for city council attorney candidates. The pending departure of his handpicked city attorney did not auger well for Mann.
The agenda for the city council’s February 24 meeting reflected that the evaluation of Graham/Pacifico’s performance was yet ongoing and was to continue in its closed session outside the scrutiny and earshot of the public that day. Also scheduled was what was phrased as a “conference with labor negotiators” pertaining to the city manager, at which Mann was to go eyeball-to-eyeball with the city council. That seemed to be an indication that Mann had come through the previous performance evaluation favorably, and what was to be worked out were the terms of his contract moving ahead. When that closed session ended, however, there was no indication of any determination or action. In the open session at that meeting was an item, offering a recommendation “that the city council review the request for proposals for city attorney services and provide direction as needed.”
On March 3, the council held a special meeting at which it appeared that the sole issue to be hashed out related to the terms of Mann’s contract extension. The recommendation on the agenda was “That the city council receive an oral report of a summary of compensation and approve the amended and restated agreement for Chris Mann as city manager and setting compensation and other terms of employment.”
Before the city council went into that closed session discussion, some city residents called upon its members to terminate Mann rather than extend his tenure.
Holly Warner called for a competitive selection process “at which Chris and others can apply. I think that would restore trust.”
Kathy Sellers said, “the city manager has lost the trust of the community due to a lack of transparency, accountability and effective communications. Two years of public input and concerns have been raised regarding his performance. Justin, you asked us to give it six months. It’s been two years. My phone has never stopped exploding with calls from disgruntled citizens. A change in leadership is necessary to restore confidence in city government and move forward with positive initiatives for the future.”
Sellers said, “The principles outlined in the International City Managers Association code of ethics and enforced by the rules of procedure govern the conduct of every member of ICMA. I invite you to read the 12 tenets set out in the code for direction. Of particular note is Tenet 7: ‘Refrain from all political activities which undermine public confidence in professional administrators. Refrain from participating in election of the members of the employing legislative body.’ I have boxes full of examples where this could very well have been violated. Circumstantial evidence is codified in the rule of law as a valid and admissible means of proving a fact. Tenet 4: ‘Serve the best interest of all community members.’ I believe that has been sidelined. I urge you to vote in favor of removing Chris Mann and outlining the process for electing a new leader.”
Lloyd Rekstad told the council, “I ask you as council members, when you are deliberating over the future of the current city manager, just consider some of the issues that are bothersome to the community members as a whole:
– When we think about decisions that have been made by city staff in terms of suing the 197 community members for the recall petition, that was led by Chris Mann, no question about it.
– Revising the general plan over and over again in order to provide more dense housing in a rather uncontrolled way. That’s not consistent with what we as Yucaipans have looked for in the future development of our community and that came about in the last two years.
– Talking about the Measure S sales tax as a one cent sales tax. It was a one-percent sales tax. People can say you quibble over one cent or one percent. There’s a huge difference. But if you present it as one cent it sounds harmless. One percent is quite different and that came from a well-orchestrated city manager.
– Bringing in a position for a public information officer with a one-million-dollar budget. We don’t have that kind of money. That came from the city manager.”
Rekstad quoted Mann as having stated to new members of the planning commission, “You don’t have to consider the input from the residents of Yucaipa because they’re not the ones you serve.” Rekstad said, “I think we need to consider what kind of leadership do we want in the position of city manager.”
Stephanie Harlan called for the city council to “review the city manager’s contract with a fine-tooth comb for needed revisions.” She said she was not calling for Mann’s termination, but wanted the city council to “consider what the [contract] provisions mean in practical effect.” In this regard, Harlan said the council should “compare the contract to other nearby cities’ [city manager contracts]. The contract does not specify the hours during which Mr. Mann should be on site” at the city. Mann’s contract is vague in this respect, Harlan said. She lamented that the “city manager has discretion over he city manager’s work schedule. It appears we have a part-time city manager earning full-time salary and benefits.”
Even more alarming, Harlan said, “The Yucaipa contract permits Mr. Mann to engage in outside activities, including consulting, holding of elected or appointed office or other business pursuits. If you review other cities, you will most likely find the contracts prohibit any non-city business, duties or pursuits… that might interfere with city business or the city manager’s function and duties or might cause a conflict of interest with the city… without the city council’s express prior consent. There’s no provision in the Yucaipa contract prohibiting conflicts of interest, clarifying what those are and citing applicable government code sections. The Yucaipa contract, which specifically allows Mr. Mann to engage in outside ventures, has no conflict-of-interest provision.”
Harlan said it appeared that Mann had been permitted to craft his contract, essentially without legal or council oversight and that what he had done was to start with his city manager’s employment contract with Canyon Lake, and edited that document in a way that entirely benefited himself, involving, Harland said “certain edits I find appalling.” She referenced in particular Section 6.2a, which pertains to the grounds for dismissal relating to criminal conduct. While Mann’s contract in Canyon Lake laid out that he could be fired for engaging in any criminal activity or conduct that subjected that city to disrepute, Harlan said, Mann’s employment with Yucaipa specifies that he can be fired only if the crime he is convicted of rises to the level of a felony and then only if the city discovers he had engaged in the crime within the first 12 months after his conviction.
A fellow who gave his name only as “Chuck” and said he lived in District 5, represented that he was not speaking for himself but a friend who could not attend. Without getting into specifics, Chuck said his friend believed that the citizens’ group Save Yucaipa, whose members apparently hold Mann in low esteem, have engaged in “harmful tactics” and have for “two years actively spread misinformation, manipulated narratives and personally attacked individuals” including his unnamed friend who was not there to speak for himself and, it was implied, Mann. His friend believed Save Yucaipa, Chuck said, was harming the community “by targeting peoples’ jobs, [and] reputations,” extending to Mann and had “promoted a mob mentality, weaponized misinformation and [is] seek[ing to manipulate city leadership.”
Donna Snodgress spoke positively about Mann, saying that under his watch he had made city information publicly available, had modernized city council meeting by broadcasting videos of them, and had ended the isolation of city department heads from one another, while uncovering a budget deficit that had existed for years under the previous management. She said Mann’s salary was not excessive, hovering at the median level paid to city managers of cities of a comparable size to Yucaipa.
Robin Miskin, speaking for her husband, said that there were conditions in Mann’s contract that “are unreasonable,” such as lifetime health benefits for him and his dependents after he serves as city manager for five years. She passed along her husband’s characterization of Mann’s hiring on January 9, 2023 as “less than appropriate” and something that had “stirred distrust in city government.”
Her husband, Miskin said, accused Mann of of utilizing political action committees he controlled to instill fear in people in orchestrating the campaign in favor of Measure S.
Miskin said her husband maintains that Mann had orchestrated the lawsuit against the city’s residents who were seeking to organize the recall of the troika who had forced Casey’s resignation, trampling on those citizens’ constitutional rights.
Her husband felt, Miskin said, that Mann’s comportment “warrants a change in the city manager.”
The council then adjourned into a closed session, emerging two hours, fourteen minutes and 16 seconds later, at which point Mann was no longer present. It was announced by Graham/Pacifico that the council had voted 3-to-1 with one abstention to place Mann on paid administrative leave. That announcement produced a chorus of audible gasps that momentarily echoed around the room.
It was subsequently revealed that Thorp, Venable and Miller had supported suspending Mann, Beaver had opposed doing so and Woolsey had abstained.
Because of the manner in which the action was taken and the confidentiality that attends governmental personnel decision, there is confusion with regard to what has occurred and no definitive statement as to whether Mann’s suspension is passing or permanent.
The Sentinel sought further clarification and explanation as to what had occurred. Neither Mann nor Pradetto returned emails or phone calls. City Hall sources, including ones who have proven reliable with regard to cloistered decisions in the past, were reluctant to speak and none would consent to any for-attribution statements.
One individual said that observers should not “misread” Mann’s suspension to conclude that he has been fired or is to be terminated, and that placing him on leave could be a negotiating tactic to get him to come down in his salary and benefit demands for his contract extension.
Another individual who closely associates with several personages at City Hall said the writing has been on the wall for some time and that Mann and his entire team – Graham/Pacifico, Sauseda and Pradetto – are on their way out and have been since November. The last two years have been, it was said, an “administrative cul-de-sac,” a chapter in the city’s history on the verge of coming to a dead end, with no continuity of the policies during the Mann managerial era to what is to come. The council majority is already contemplating who is to be brought in, according to this narrative, to supplant him. No one should be surprised, the Sentinel was told, if the council makes an overture to the now 64-year-old Casey, who is currently working with the civil engineering consulting firm Transtech, to see if he will reprise his role as city manager. Mann’s course as city manager had run with the departure of Duncan and Garner from the council and was delayed only by the 90-day protection for city managers following an election built into the city code, this source of information said. That much was obvious with preparations to replace Graham/Pacifico that went into high gear last month, the Sentinel is informed.
A third individual, while solemnly intoning that Mann is doomed, said that right up until Monday night he was on a track to remain as city manager for years to come. It was during the closed session that evening, the Sentinel is told, when the members of the council took to heart Harlan’s and Miskin’s call to closely examine Mann’s proposed contract going forward, which Mann had himself written and which had not been previously scrutinized by the council, that the momentum shifted against Mann. There are multiple terms and provisos within the contract which were one-sidedly favorable to the city manager and to the potential detriment to the city and its taxpaying residents which pushed Venable, who deals with business contracts in the private sector, and Miller, who for a time served in the capacity of acting city manager in Colton, in particular toward believing that Mann was taking advantage of his unchecked position of authority, the Sentinel was told.