Riverside, CA – May 25, 2018. The City of Murrieta, represented by Carlsbad attorneys Daniel Modafferi and Neal Meyers successfully defeated a petition for writ of mandate filed by the City’s former Mayor. The City Council removed the Mayor in 2015 following an independent investigation into allegations of misconduct. However, the petition sought a court order nullifying the City Council’s action, arguing that the misconduct allegations were a pretext for discrimination based on the Mayor’s ethnicity.
The court ruled that, pursuant to the California Government Code, the Mayor serves at the pleasure of the City Council and can be removed at any time, for any reason, without notice or a hearing, so long as the removal does not violate any superseding constitutional or statutory provision. The court then found that the former Mayor had failed to prove discrimination based on race, ethnicity, color, or national origin. The only evidence of discrimination offered by the former Mayor was his own self-serving declaration, which consisted entirely of conjecture and inadmissible hearsay.
Based on the complete lack of evidence of any discriminatory motive, the court denied the former Mayor’s petition and permitted the City Council’s vote to stand.