Home » Antioch City Attorney Resigns

Antioch City Attorney Resigns

by CC News
Antioch City Attorney

On Tuesday, the City of Antioch announced that City Attorney Thomas Lloyd Smith has resigned effective January 17, 2025.

In response, Derek Cole, of the law firm Cole Huber LLP, will serve as the Interim City Attorney until a permanent City Attorney is appointed.

“The City Council would like to express its gratitude to Mr. Smith for his service and dedication to our city over the past five and a half years and wish him well in his future endeavors,” said Antioch in a press statement.

The move comes after the Antioch City Council held a special meeting on Friday.  Prior to going into closed session for the 1-agenda item meeting, the there were 5 public comment speakers who defended Smith and verbally attacked the city council members.

During its December 10 meeting, Councilmember Don Freitas called for the termination of Smith.

“The other I realize may be controversial. When I talk about developing the team between the city council, city manager, and city attorney, I believe that Mr. Smith has served the city well for 6 years, but I would recommend we terminate the city attorney and go out and recruit and hire a city attorney that all five of us have a say in.”

Smith was hired in February of 2019 while he was an attorney with Meyers Nave Riback Silver & Wilson.

While working as an Attorney for Meyer Nave, Smith has been assigned to the City of San Leandro as Assistant City Attorney and has provided legal counsel to the City of El Cerrito, City of Larkspur, and Central Contra Costa Sanitary District. While working for Garcia Hernandez Sawhney, Mr. Smith supported a City, a Special District and several Community College entities. His earlier legal experiences were with two Boston based law firms where he supported public policy issues and provided advisory services for non-profits, star-ups and venture capitalists. Mr. Smith has extensive experience in public law, contract law, conflicts of interest, workplace investigations, employee discipline and DFEH/EEOC matters. He has dealt with issues of the Political Reform Act, Ralph M. Brown Act and the Public Records Act.

Prior to his legal experience, Mr. Smith worked for three years as an Administrative Manager for a global law firm where he oversaw four departments with responsibility for business planning and the profit and loss statement. Mr. Smith also founded and was Executive Director for a Boston based Charter School geared towards grades 6 – 8. He started his professional career as a business analyst for McKinsey & Company in New York.

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3 comments

Moving On January 21, 2025 - 10:22 am

Antioch needs a fresh start with people who are interested in doing what’s best for the city. No hidden agendas. I wish the remaining Thorpe disciples (aka the voting block) on the council would resign. Then I think we could really make some headway.

Arne January 21, 2025 - 2:26 pm

In a way, I am sorry to stt Thomas Lloyd Smith leaving as City Attorney.
During my time as City Ckerk, I had a great working relationship with him
He even deferred all matters of Robert’s Rules of Ordet to me during Council meetings, as he quickly recognized that I knew them inside and out.
But I did have issues with him after I left as City Clerk, for not reigning in former Mayor Thorpe!!
I wish him well in all his future endeavors.

ManBearPig January 22, 2025 - 5:17 am

Mr. Smith didn’t see an issue with Lamar voting for his friend, campaign donor, and campaign worker Con Johnson for city manager.

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