City Appoints New Interim City Attorney

By Robert Haugh

The City of Santa Clara has  a new, Interim City Attorney. It’s Brian Doyle who is a Santa Clara resident and Civil Services Commissioner. He received unanimous support from the city council with Dominic Caserta absent for the vote.

Ren Nosky, who was the City Attorney, suddenly resigned during the holidays. Around town, people, say it wasn’t as dramatic as former Mayor Jamie Matthews’ resignation the day after the Super Bowl, but it was close. And there are some similar rumors swirling about reasons why.

Stand Up for Santa Clara, a grassroots organization that formed to save the soccer park,  recently released a statement that reflects a lot of what we’ve been hearing around town. Here are a few tidbits from that:

“This is a welcome development for Santa Clara residents and everyone who believes in transparency and good government. Nosky had a terrible record in these areas as a city attorney. Nosky should have represented the interests of the city and its residents, but rarely did.”

“Nosky was responsible for creating and managing the legal agreements with the 49ers … (not good)

Nosky recommended a law firm that had ties to the 49ers and NFL to represent the city …(not good)

Nosky failed to enforce the lobbyist ordinance when former Mayor Patty Mahan ran for office last year and refused to register as a lobbyist for a billboard company that wants to build more billboards in our city….. (really not good)

We wish Doyle the best of luck as he will have a lot things to clean up. But his job won’t be boring.