Alan Leigh Armstrong: Good system needed

RACE FOR CITY ATTORNEY

Name: Alan Leigh Armstrong

Age: 57

Occupation: Attorney/adjunct professor

Family: Wife of 30 years, Margie; two sons, Don, 23, and Mark, 20.

Community activities: Committee member and former chairman of Boy

Scout Troop 568; cubmaster of Cub Scout Pack 506 1990-93;

communicator with Huntington Beach Radio Amateur Community Emergency

Service and Orange County Red Cross; Huntington Beach Chamber of

Commerce; lawyer for Orange County Bar Assn. Call-A-Lawyer program;

panel attorney for the Legal Clinic operated by the Para-legal

Department of Coastline Community College. I am also a chancellor,

lay reader and a lay Eucharistic Minister at St. James Episcopal

Church.

Education: Bachelor’s in physics from UC Riverside (1967);

doctorate from Western State University in Fullerton (1984).

Favorite leader: Ronald Reagan.

Contact information: (714) 375-1147; fax (714) 375-1149; e-mail

alan@alanarmstrong.com; Web site www.alanarmstrong.com.

ARMSTRONG ON:

* SAVING MONEY IN THE CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE:

Bringing as much work in house as possible and do it as

efficiently as possible. Any outside work must be carefully managed.

* RUNNING THE CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE MORE EFFICIENTLY:

To run efficiently, the city attorney’s office needs management

systems. Every lawsuit, ordinance or legal question contains one or

more “action items.” Each action item must be “captured” and put into

a system. The system has to be a “trusted system.” That is a system

that will not forget or lose the action.

Once in the system, the attorney or staff person who is working on

the action item must have available a plan to complete the action and

any previous or related casework that would be helpful to the action.

While one lawsuit may be different from another, there will be

many similarities. There is discovery to propound, discovery to

respond to and decisions to be made. If an ordinance is to be

drafted, the municipal code will have to be checked to see if the new

ordinance will change an existing ordinance. The ordinance will have

to be checked to make sure it does not conflict with California law,

federal law or the Constitution.

A good system will remind people of what to do, thus minimizing

the possibility of forgetting to take every necessary action. That

should eliminate some lawsuits. If a good system had been applied to

the ban on airplane banners, the city would have known that it might

be sued for limiting free speech by closing a public forum.

A good system should also allow the city attorney time to evaluate

lawsuits and respond by settling them or being prepared to go for

summary judgment at the earliest opportunity.

* BIGGEST CHALLENGE THAT FACES THE NEW CITY ATTORNEY:

The current California budget is “smoke and mirrors.” It is

probable that the state will take back money that is currently

destined for Huntington Beach. The next California budget may be

smaller than the current budget. The city attorney will have to do

the job with less money.

* MOST IMPORTANT LAWSUITS FACING THE CITY:

The aerial banner lawsuit has the potential of going to the United

States Supreme Court. There is a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

decision upholding the Honolulu ordinance. However, the lawsuit by

the Center for Bio-ethical Reform is based on closing what may be a

public forum to political speech.

If Huntington Beach goes ahead with its credit card plan, it must

be very careful not to give personal private information on the

people to the credit card company. If it crosses that line, a lawsuit

is probable. Rules and systems must be in place to avoid that

problem.

While not yet a lawsuit, control of storm water runoff is becoming

very important. I would expect a lawsuit or regulations within the

next four years to require treatment of the runoff. There are also

hazardous cleanup issues with Southeast Huntington Beach and the

Bolsa Chica oil fields.

I am surprised that a lawsuit for inverse condemnation has not

been filed over the Bolsa Chica property owned by Hearthstone. Unless

a mutually acceptable agreement is reached shortly, a lawsuit is

probable.