Ms. Wendy Stockton is currently Of Counsel to the law firm of Jones Mayer and serves public entities on the Central Coast of California with general municipal legal services. As a second-generation public servant, she has dedicated herself to municipal law for over thirty-five years. The City of Santa Maria employed Ms. Stockton as Legal Counsel for more than twenty-five years. In this capacity she regularly and innovatively handled complex and sensitive projects, such as adult business ordinances, anti-loitering ordinances aimed at juvenile delinquency, and a “good neighbor” ordinance to prevent un-neighborly consequences of private events, through drafting, presentation to Council, administrative implementation, and court.
After being recruited by Lompoc and Santa Maria to initiate code enforcement programs, Ms. Stockton pioneered civil and criminal court compliance in these cities. She later added public recording, administrative fines and penalties, reasonable accommodation, and public and private funding to available enforcement tools.
The City of Santa Maria assigned Ms. Stockton to its Planning Commission for over twenty years, a time of explosive growth. Ms. Stockton oversaw the City’s compliance with State Planning and Zoning Law, the California Environmental Policy Act, Subdivision Map Act, developer fee law, assessment law, endangered species law, public bidding/prevailing wages law, solid and hazardous-waste law, and stormwater regulation. In this assignment she regularly drafted notices, ordinances, resolutions, instruments, implementing procedures, standard conditions, and agreements, and advised the Commission concerning open-meeting requirements and conflict-of-interest restrictions. She also handled litigation arising out of challenges to project approvals and denials.
As cities embraced paperless technology, Ms. Stockton designed and implemented the Central Coast’s first electronic system to process liability claims, headed records management and document imaging projects, and developed a specialty negotiating contracts for software and services. Working closely with staff, she also developed user-friendly contract and resolution forms for everyday use and efficient legal review. To address skyrocketing public requests for access to information, she instituted policy and training for responding promptly and properly to public records requests.
Ms. Stockton coordinated Santa Maria’s accessibility programs for persons with disabilities for over a decade. Her efforts included community outreach, staff training, obtaining grant funding, and assisting with physical improvements to City facilities.
Ms. Stockton has recently assisted Santa Maria and South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District in achieving major goals of state-certifying a housing element, receiving permitting for a 90-year landfill, and raising fees to fund a critical redundancy project.
In the community, Ms. Stockton volunteers with Friends of Camp Natoma, Inc. and plays banjo in bands with family and friends.