SELMA – Just four months after a turbulent reorganization process and subsequent investigation Selma City Manager Fernando Santillan was decisively shown the door.
City Attorney Neal Costanzo reported that the council voted 4-1 in a closed session meeting on April 15 to terminate Santillan’s contract with the city; Councilmember John Trujillo voted against the action. Costanzo said Santillan’s termination will be effective the day he receives his final paycheck, which could be within the week or by the following Friday at the latest. The council appointed Deputy City Manager Jerome Keene as acting city manager.
Mayor Scott Robertson alluded to the reasoning behind the council’s decision in a statement, saying that “the people depend on their elected government representatives and employees to place the people’s financial interests above their own. When that trust is broken, as it was in Selma, the people’s financial position must be restored, and those who have betrayed that trust must be held to account.”
Robertson added, “today, we begin the work of restoring the public trust in your city government to place you first in financial decisions regarding taxpayer funds.”
Santillan and his attorney Charles Hamamjian said that they disagree with the rationale provided for Santillan’s termination. Both a complaint challenging the “political termination” of Santillan and a government tort claim will be filed against the city.
“Mr. Santillan has done an excellent job for the city of Selma and his political termination was in response to him attempting to get the city to act lawfully and ethically,” they said in a written statement. “His termination is wrong and the legal process will vindicate his actions which have always been in the best interest of the city.”
Santillan said he feels proud of the work he and his team have done during his tenure as city manager, which began on a permanent basis in December 2021 after he spent time as the interim city manager.
“We embarked upon a very clear path on the administrative side to establish fiscal constraint and fiscal growth fueled by investments in infrastructure — and the previous city council supported that — and because of that, the city is on a positive trajectory,” he said.
Council proceedings
Trujillo was not present at the open session of the council meeting — Costanzo said he left at 5:30 p.m., an hour after the closed session began — but told the Mid Valley Times that he voted against the action on the grounds that he believes the termination was an act of retaliation regarding conflict between the mayor and Santillan.
“That’s the reason why I voted no; I think it’s going to be a huge liability to the city,” Trujillo said.
Further, Trujillo said he was not present at the open session meeting because, as a tax consultant, he needed to attend to his clients, given that the meeting fell on Tax Day.
Ahead of the closed session, Costanzo told the council that Santillan had been sent a memorandum on April 9 informing him of the agenda items, which included a public employee evaluation and consideration of a discharge/dismissal/release.
No one from the public spoke on the matter before the closed session, but Administrative Services Director Janie Venegas read a letter sent by “a concerned citizen” into the record. In the letter, the resident described the qualities they believe makes a good city manager and urged the council to not make any rash decisions or take negative action against Santillan.
Pursuant to state law, Santillan had the option to have the complaints against him heard in an open session; however, Santillan told the Mid Valley Times that he does not think a city council meeting is the appropriate forum to try to defend himself “against these false allegations.”
“The city council makes the council meetings a spectacle and a circus already; there’s no need for me to try to add to that because I know that this will be resolved in another forum,” Santillan said.
Costanzo said the council also voted 4-1 to release an April 9 memorandum prepared by himself and investigator John Kunkel that listed the reasons for terminating Santillan with cause. The Mid Valley Times obtained a copy of this memo and a memo sent in response by Santillan and Hamamjian.
Basis for termination
According to the memo, the decision to terminate Santillan came about from the independent investigation the council enlisted Kunkel to perform.
At its Feb. 3 meeting, the council voted 4-1, with Trujillo against, to have Kunkel look into the events surrounding the Dec. 12, Dec. 19 and Jan. 21 meetings, where city staff and the council clashed on the proper procedure for reorganizing the council after the November election. He was also instructed to look into matters relating to the basis of the council’s approval of a $350,000 settlement agreement reached with Santillan in May 2024.
While Kunkel was hired on as the investigator, the resolution approved by the council directed Costanzo to “provide legal service, advice and consultation to the investigator as requested.” As such, the 16-page memo primarily included determinations made by Costanzo, “with the input of the independent investigator relative to facts discovered by him.”
According to the memo, this was because it became clear to Kunkel and Costanzo early into the investigation that although they needed to determine the specific facts of city staff conduct during the December and January meetings, apparent legal issues surrounding Santillan’s settlement agreement took priority.
The memo lays out a legal argument claiming that Santillan’s employment agreement amended on Feb. 6, 2023, as well as the May 2024 settlement, are both void and also violate California Government Code Section 1090. The section states that public officials cannot be financially interested in a contract made by them in their official capacity.
Costanzo claimed Santillan violated this by negotiating terms of his contract after a back-and-forth series of claims of discrimination and retaliation between Santillan and Robertson that began in 2023.
Further, the memo takes issue with Santillan’s actions to retain law firm Hanson Bridgett following the December council meetings. At that time, Santillan had expressed concern that the council’s attempts to reorganize were in violation of the state elections code and he said it was his duty to minimize the city’s liability.
Costanzo and Robertson adamantly denied that the council’s reorganization was in violation of any state law.
The memo said that Santillan retaining the law firm was “in excess” of his authority and his acting on a legal opinion “which was contrary to the express position taken by the city council amounts to failures and refusals to perform the duties of the office of the city manager.”
In an interview with the Mid Valley Times, Santillan and Hamamjian said they disagree with the memorandum. Hamamjian said that to suggest Santillan engaged in wrongdoing “is purely a thing of fiction,” and Santillan added that the statement the mayor made was “extremely malicious.”
“I think to suggest that there was substantial financial impropriety on my end because I settled a claim and hired an independent legal counsel to advise on liability, I think they’ve reached pretty far to try to manufacture some sort of cause to terminate my employment,” Santillan said.
Beyond terminating Santillan’s employment, the memo claims that because the Feb. 6, 2023, employment agreement amendment is not valid, Santillan’s contract with the city actually expired on Dec. 7, 2024, per his initial agreement made in 2021. With that, the memo states that the city is entitled to recover additional amounts paid to Santillan under the amended employment agreement and the settlement agreement.
However, the memo states that because it “is unlikely the city will gain recovery” of the additional amounts paid to Santillan, it recommends the city council authorize a lawsuit against previous City Attorney Megan Crouch and her law firm Griswold LaSalle Cobb Dowd & Gin LLP for malpractice.
Further, it recommends that because Robertson and Mayor pro tem Sarah Guerra reported the settlement agreement to Victor Lai of the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office Public Integrity Unit, and “Lai refused to pursue the matter,” the referral of criminal charges should be made to the Attorney General’s Office.
