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San Luis Obispo County Counsel Rita Neal retiring

January 27, 2025

San Luis Obispo County Counsel Rita Neal

By KAREN VELIE

San Luis Obispo County Counsel Rita Neal announced today she plans to retire on March 15.

Neal has worked for the county since 1998, when she was hired as a deputy county counsel. The SLO County Board of Supervisors appointed Neal to lead the office in Sept. 2012.

“I was intrigued with public service from the beginning of my career and knew what direction I wanted to go,”  Neal said.

Neal’s office advises not only the Board of Supervisors, but all the county’s various departments, commissions, boards as well as the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments and Regional Transportation Agency.

“It has been by honor and privilege to work in the SLO County Counsel’s office for all these years,” Neal said.  “My career and role as county counsel has always been to do what is in the best interests of the county. That work was not always easy, but it has always been personally very rewarding.”

Supervisor Bruce Gibson worked with Rita for much of her tenure.

“Rita is an exceptional person and attorney and it’s been a great pleasure to know and work with her for more than 25 years,” Gibson said. “During my time in office, she helped guide the county through extremely difficult events, always with her calm good nature and solid legal advice.”

 


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So for several years our county jail ran by Sheriff Parkinson failed to make required changes to which the DOJ had to step in to force them to do their job, where was our outrageously compensated county council this whole time? apparently not doing her job making sure the jail corrected their failures. So overpriced compensation clearly doesn’t gets us quailty people.


1

This may be an opportunity to increase AI and shrink the staff? Although it would take time to get accustomed to yes means yes and no means no.


4

which includes a almost 7% increase a year from 2020-2023, our economy was was suffering but not government employees, guaranteed 7% increase without any ties to quality of work.


7

Rita NealCounty Counsel

San Luis Obispo County, 2023 $276,536.00$0.00$9,050.00$285,586.00$138,507.16$424,093.16

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/san-luis-obispo-county/


4

She “sacrificed” for public service. LOL!


13

What do you think the the lead lawyer for an organization with thousands of employees and a yearly budget of nearly a billion dollars should be paid? Minimum wage? Applebee’s gift cards?Would a private sector equivalent make less than half of the figure you posted?


If you pay your employees nothing, expect to get nothing.


2

Hmmmm, the President of the US gets $400,000, Chief justice of the Supreme Court gets $277,700, so in one county in one state of the US, say $150,000 max sounds good.


4

We should be paying public employees competitive rates with private sector employees. Anyone who has the skills and experience to, for example, run the entire county legal team could also be a senior partner at a large law firm. The private sector job would pay 10-20x higher which realistically means the only people you’d get for the county job are either incompetent left overs, corruptly getting supplemental income, or are the very rare true believer in public service. What you’re proposing is communistic: expecting executive managers, chief engineers, county doctors, and senior lawyers to make the same money as an experienced HVAC technician. To each according to their need eh? I say no, pay for skills and experience, complete for world class talent.


3

This is a true loss for the county. A career in public service well done.


-32

Thank you Rita for your service…


-24