🚨Breaking: Former City Manager Farrell Harrison Sues Costa Mesa

Eagle-eyed, long-time city watcher Geoff West spotted the newsy bit in the July 15, 2025 city council agenda that was just updated this afternoon: one of the closed session litigations has disclosed the plaintiff, which is none other than former city manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison.

Farrell Harrison has filed a “writ of mandate” against the city, likely alleging wrongful termination. Writs of mandate are typically used in the municipal employment context to sue the formerly employing city after all other administrative appeals have been exhausted. I don’t have any other information about the case at this time.

While I doubt the city attorney’s report on the closed session meeting will shed much light on this case, I expect the regular meeting will still be worth keeping an eye on. Rumor has it that there will be a big push in public comments to urge the City Council to adopt policies to address raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the city limits and the economic fallout they are causing.

Stay tuned.

Goat Wrangler
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3 responses to “🚨Breaking: Former City Manager Farrell Harrison Sues Costa Mesa”

  1. Sal Avatar
    Sal

    Costa Mesa first has obtained the verified petition for the writ of mandate for brown act violations and allegations about Mayor Stephens. It’s on their Facebook page. She should have taken her severence and walked away. It was already apparent in how she addressed Council during meetings that she had no class and had forgotten that she serves “at their pleasure” when a city manager feels comfortable disrispecting Council in televised and recorded, you can tell things aren’t working out.

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    1. Goat Wrangler Avatar
      Goat Wrangler

      yes I saw that. I want to review it carefully before addressing it. Folks can see it here:

      https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1160012536169049&id=100064809396781&mibextid=wwXIfr

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      1. Sal Avatar
        Sal

        I’m interested to see what you think about “agenda control” given what you had shared in your previous post and in light of what Lori Ann is now claiming. It did appear as if she was controlling what got put on the agenda but also wants to now pin errors ok when and how things got posted on council? Aren’t the city manager & the clerk in charge of publishing agendas? Wouldn’t the city attorney have to advise them all if something was going to be Brown Act violation? Am I interpreting this correctly? 

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