In accordance with the City Charter, the City Attorney is appointed by the City Council to prosecute all criminal cases for violation of the Charter and City ordinances, and to attend to all suits and other matters to which the City is a party or in which the City may be legally interested. The City Attorney provides a full range of legal services to the city and is the chief legal advisor to the City Council, Housing Authority, City Departments, and all appointed boards and commissions. While performing as the City's chief legal advisor, the City Attorney's Office, among other things, manages all outside counsel, reviews and negotiates City and Redevelopment Agency agreements, advises on municipal law issues, drafts and reviews legislation, litigates civil cases, and prosecutes Glendale Municipal Code violations.
As such, the City Attorney's Office does not, and cannot, provide legal advice to citizens or residents within the City of Glendale.
The City Attorney's Office is committed to providing professional, quality legal services that ultimately protect the interests of the City of Glendale, its departments, the City Council, and the citizens of the community. We provide a full range of dedicated, in-house legal services intended to ensure the legality of legislation, contracts, and programs, as well as ethically and competently defending legal actions filed against the City and its employees.
Michael "Mike" J. Garcia was appointed City Attorney for the City of Glendale, California in September 2011. As the City’s chief legal officer, Mike advises the City Council, City Manager, and the City Executive team on a wide variety of municipal law issues, with a particular emphasis on the Brown Act, the Public Records Act, conflict of interest and other ethics laws, campaign finance, affordable housing and land use. Mike also provides oversight in many other areas of law practiced by the City Attorney’s Office, including litigation, employment, and Propositions 218/26 compliance.
Prior to his appointment as City Attorney, Mike served as Glendale’s Chief Assistant City Attorney from 2005 to 2011. As Chief Assistant City Attorney, he was the City’s principal land use legal advisor and counsel for the City’s Planning Commission. He also was the primary supervisor of the Office’s legal and professional staff. Prior to joining Glendale, Mike held various positions in the Burbank City Attorney’s Office, with a primary emphasis on redevelopment, affordable housing, and land use. He worked in the private sector advising municipal law clients prior to joining Burbank.
Mike attended the University of California, San Diego (Earl Warren College) and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with minors in Economics and History. He graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California in 1997, where he was a member of the Wechsler First Amendment Moot Court Team and the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal (COMM/ENT).
Mike is an active member of the City Attorneys Department of the League of California Cities, where he has served on the Nominating Committee, the FPPC Committee, the Legal Advocacy Committee, and the City Attorneys Association of Los Angeles County (CAALAC), where he served as President in 2009. Mr. Garcia has conducted various in-house trainings on land use and open government laws, and presented at conferences and seminars before the California Redevelopment Association and American Planning Association.
mjgarcia@glendaleca.gov
