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Pismo Beach city attorney resigns following evaluation

May 29, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

Pismo Beach City Attorney David Fleishman sent a letter of resignation shortly after the city council conducted a closed session performance evaluation. He has represented the city for 25 years.

Over the past few years, the city of Pismo Beach’s contract attorney costs and legal losses have soared. For example, during fiscal year 2022-2023, the city paid $643,335 for its contract city attorney, an amount that swelled to $1,819,440 during fiscal year 2023-2024.

Courtroom losses have also cost the city millions of dollars. In 2022, a judge ordered the city of Pismo Beach to repay the developer of a storage facility more than $1 million for overcharging development impact fees.

In 2024, a San Luis Obispo Superior Court jury awarded $350,000 to a contractor who Pismo Beach officials threatened to harm unless he agreed to accept less than the city owed him for his work.

Two months ago, a judge rejected the city’s argument that a homeowner’s plan to place a rainwater collection system on a 2.5 acre parcel was banned because it is a nonconforming use. The determination will likely cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars for attorney fees and court costs.

On May 15, the Pismo Beach City Council conducted a performance review of Fleishman. Shortly after the meeting, Fleishman and his firm Richards, Watson & Gerson sent a letter resigning from the city with a last day of June 30.

 


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Seems to me that the contract attorney was forced to defend really BAD city decisions in court, spending lots of billable hours on lost causes. Perhaps the city should look to their bad and unjust decisions rather than blame their attorney who was contractually bound to defend them.


17

It’s good to be a City Attorney, you get paid whether you win or not. It only took them 25 years to get rid of him.


11

The examples cited above were the result of the City making bad decisions which led to legal action. Doesn’t seem like the attorney’s fault, he’s just profiting off of their situation. Seems like they are deflecting around the real problem.


17

Let me get this straight. It appears that PB city staff attempted to extort (read cheat) a developer and a contractor, both of whom refused to submit, and instead sought justice, which they ultimately achieved. Consequently, the same city staff dispatched their unfortunate defender to prevent the victims from obtaining their rightful justice. When the defender failed to justify the unjustifiable, they were blamed and banished. This scenario is common, but occasionally, the client becomes so unreasonable that the contract employee gives up in frustration. For example: https://calcoastnews.com/2023/10/attorney-resigns-after-contentious-oceano-csd-meeting/

Having retired from the construction industry, I witnessed numerous instances of government agency staff attempting to cheat contractors and related parties. In many cases, justice eventually prevailed. I suspect that the city staff in the cases at issue were warned about being in the wrong, but imprudently continued their questionable activities, knowing that they would face no consequences. How about addressing the actual offenders? They are easy to identify due to their clumsy scams, which are often backed by ample evidence, as the city discovered in court.


18

Amazing, fail enough times at your job, cost the taxpayers/residents enough money and even in a government position you can get fired, sort of. The old saying holds, better late than never. Too bad it doesn’t happen as often as it should in government.


7

He tripled his enormous salary in a year, and got busy losing cases.


Yeah. Sounds about right…


32

Only attorneys and weatherman can be totally wrong and still get paid. This pompous incompetent Coward resigned before the city could fire him. Good Riddance.


19

Surprise, surprise, more incompetence by a city. They don’t care, they personally do not have to foot the bill.


24