Government
Aug. 9, 2002
Herrera Aide Joins S.F. Firm
SAN FRANCISCO - Kimon Manolius, the top administrator in the San Francisco city attorney's office, has left to join Hanson Bridgett Marcus Vlahos & Rudy, the office announced Wednesday.
Taking his desk at City Hall is former Housing Authority commissioner Marisa Moret.
Manolius served as chief counsel, managing attorney and chief of civil litigation in his 11 years with the city attorney. In his latest job, he was one of three top deputies under City Attorney Dennis Herrera, overseeing the office's budget, personnel and information management.
Manolius helped ramp up the city's prosecution of code enforcement cases by using civil penalties to transform the city's neighborhoods.
He won big civil judgments against people who violated police, fire, health or building codes. In one case, he won a $250,000 judgment against a tow truck operator who illegally towed hundreds of cars. In another, he persuaded an appellate court to uphold a $700,000 judgment against the owner of a dilapidated apartment building.
Manolius joined San Francisco's Hanson Bridgett as senior counsel last week, and said he hopes to attract work from cities seeking to contract out code enforcement and consumer protection work.
"Cities may already do that, but they may not do it in the most effective way," he said. "In San Francisco we found that you have to have zero tolerance. Otherwise cities can get strung along waiting for compliance."
"You need to hit them in the pocketbook," he said. "If you have their property, you get compliance real fast."
Moret, who graduated from the UCLA School of Law in 1994, was most recently a partner in San Francisco's Nossaman Guthner Knox & Elliott specializing in land use, environmental and real estate issues.
Mayor Willie Brown appointed her to the housing commission in 1997. Moret also served as a board member of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. She was Herrera's treasurer during his 2001 campaign to become city attorney.
Manolius and his rock-and-roll cover band will play a party in his honor Sept. 3 at Bottom of the Hill (he's the bass player). A $20 donation at the door will benefit the Workers' Children's Fund, a nonprofit organization that helps underprivileged kids by paying for activities normally denied to them such as summer camp, music lessons or the high school prom.
The band comprises local lawyers, who have been arguing over the name, said Deputy City Attorney John Shanley. The band is tentatively titled "Kind to Animals" "on the theory that if they stink, people can say, 'Hey, at least they're kind to animals,'" Shanley said.
Tyler Cunningham
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