Council Fills City Attorney Post at Last : Government: After more than a year of searching for a replacement, members choose Marsha Jones Moutrie virtually on the spot.

Marsha Jones Moutrie laid it on the line Tuesday night: If the Santa Monica City Council wanted a city attorney who mixed politics with jurisprudence, she was the wrong lawyer for the job.

“I was pleasantly surprised,” Moutrie recalls. “They were happy.”

So happy that Moutrie was chosen virtually on the spot for the $110,000-a-year job, thus ending an often ugly and seemingly endless search to replace former City Atty. Robert M. Myers.

Moreover, Moutrie was selected by a unanimous vote of the council, an amazing feat when viewed against the strife that had sometimes paralyzed the search for Myers’ successor.

Often described as the moral compass for the liberal forces that control city politics, Myers was fired in September, 1992, for refusing to draft and enforce laws that made the city less hospitable to the homeless.

In a historical sense, Myers was instrumental in bringing Moutrie to the city’s attention: She worked for him for two years as a staff attorney before taking her current job with the Los Angeles law firm of Richards Watson & Gershon, whose specialty is municipal law.

“I think she’s an excellent choice,” Myers said. “I feel good about the City Council appointing Marsha as city attorney.”

*

But, despite the accolades from her former boss, Moutrie is expected to play a far less political role than Myers, who often publicly clashed with council members and was not shy about pushing his own agenda.

Moutrie said that in Tuesday night’s closed session she told the council, “If they had in mind a city attorney who would take public positions on issues and approach the job with their own political agenda, then I couldn’t do it.”

As for how she will differ from Myers, Moutrie said, “I’m probably more communicative than him.”

While Moutrie denies it, several sources who requested anonymity suggested she left the city attorney’s office after clashing openly with Myers about his style.

“If you asked Bob if I’m an opinionated person who shared my opinion, he’d say yes,” Moutrie said diplomatically.

Actually, Myers said he only recalls one minor dispute with Moutrie--over which restaurant to go to after she won a big case. As he recalls it, Moutrie prevailed.

Raised in Northern California and a graduate of UCLA and UCLA Law School, where she was on the Law Review, Moutrie, 46, has what might seem a perfect resume for a law job with the city of Santa Monica.

For the first several years after being admitted to the bar in 1975, Moutrie devoted herself to Legal Aid work in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

*

“This is really going to sound corny,” she said. “I really wanted to do something useful.”

Burned out and seeking interesting work that wasn’t all-consuming, Moutrie became a Santa Monica Rent Board attorney in 1983, the year she married her husband, David, a systems analyst for Princess Cruises.

The couple lives in the Sunset Park section of Santa Monica with their twin 6-year-old sons, who attend Santa Monica public school.

Following her brief stint defending rent control, Moutrie worked for Myers for two years.

Moutrie’s work for the rent board and for Myers won her support among rent control supporters on the council. But it was her most recent experience in the private sector that sold Robert T. Holbrook and Asha Greenberg, the two council members not allied with the rent control group.

Holbrook and Greenberg were looking for a non-ideologue with broad municipal law experience.

“One of the things I like about her is the fact she said there would be no politics in her office,” Holbrook said. “She said she was not going to be involved in city politics at all.”

Former Santa Monica Mayor Chris Reed, a critic of Myers, was also pleased with the news. “We’re going to get a real attorney at last in charge of this office,” Reed said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

“What a wonderful holiday present to the city,” said City Councilman Paul Rosenstein, who was elected with the backing of the renters-rights group, but who had worked to find a middle ground in the search process. “All Santa Monicans will respect and trust her.”

The search to replace Myers was a disaster from the get-go.

While the pro-rent control council majority was looking for an ideological mate, Holbrook and Greenberg sought a solid legal talent whose advice would not be tinged by politics.

Acting City Atty. Joseph Lawrence was always a strong contender, especially when a recruitment search failed to turn up someone universally popular with the council.

Lawrence carried the pluses and minuses of being Myers’ second in command. Though he was a known quantity who could be trusted to staunchly defend rent control, Lawrence was also widely perceived to be too close to Myers to strike a new course sought by the council.

Lawrence, who said his plans are up in the air, endorsed Moutrie as a “talented attorney” who is “inheriting a talented staff.”

The other contender was Matthew St. George, a Los Angeles deputy city attorney who manages the West Los Angeles office. He also wished Moutrie well.

At one point last summer, St. George had the four committed council votes he needed to be selected. One of those supporters, Mayor Judy Abdo, refused to vote, St. George says, because she was afraid to buck Lawrence supporter Councilman Ken Genser.

Genser had apparently threatened to publicly accuse Abdo of avoiding her rent control allies by siding with political enemies Greenberg and Holbrook in the selection of a new city attorney. And leaders of the rent control movement pressured Abdo not to pick a city attorney who didn’t have the backing of at least three of the badly split five council members backed by their group.

*

St. George said he was disappointed in not getting the job and angry at being strung along, especially by Abdo. He said he had expected her to go to bat for him in part because, as an openly gay attorney, he would have brought needed diversity to the city government. Abdo is an activist for gay and lesbian issues.

As for Moutrie’s selection, St. George said it “shows that the Santa Monicans for Renters Rights faction that controls the council is incapable of dealing with the issues of the present and future. What they’ve done is fallen back on their own standby and hired a rent control lawyer, instead of dealing with public safety as I would have done.”

Besides council politics, St. George’s lack of experience in civil law was also a factor, according to city officials.

After months of impasse, the council reviewed about eight resumes and Tuesday night interviewed Moutrie and two male city attorneys for other medium-size California cities.

Many candidates needed to be persuaded to apply after the uproar over Myers and his firing, city officials said, with attorneys worried about being thrown into what appeared to be a volatile political situation.

No one was more surprised than Moutrie to get a call just before midnight from City Manager John Jalili, who informed her she had been selected later on the night of her interview. Moutrie said she had expected a more protracted selection process.

Attorneys who have worked with Moutrie and against her say the council’s choice was a good one.

*

“That’s wonderful,” Craig Mordoh, who recently lost a West Hollywood rent control case to Moutrie, said after learning of her selection. “I think she’s a very honest, competent attorney. She follows the law more than ideology. I always found her to be a pleasure on the other side (of a case).”

Santa Monica land use attorney Christopher Harding was also pleased, citing Moutrie’s integrity and professionalism.

Indeed, at her current job, Moutrie was heavily involved in quality control of the firm’s legal work. One of the founders of the firm, Glenn Watson, said he was going to miss her greatly. “She’s an outstanding lawyer,” Watson said. “Our loss is Santa Monica’s gain.”