The “Mayor’s Office” is no monolithic enterprise, but an assortment of loosely organized functions, including the Office of the Chief of Staff, the Communications Office, the Budget Office, the Liaison to the Board of Supervisors, the Public Policy Office, the Office of Criminal Justice, and others. A request for advice may come from any of these units, or maybe from another department working in conjunction with the Mayor’s Office.
Advice to the Mayor’s Office is typically a joint project, involving not just General Counsel to the Mayor’s Office, but multiple teams from the City Attorney’s Office. A lot of the job involves constant contact with the scheduler for the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, to set up (and constantly reschedule) meetings between the City Attorney’s Office and the Mayor’s Office.
Such examples of advice may be in response to the powers and duties of the Mayor, his staff and other divisions of City government, ethics issues such as reporting of gifts and conflicts of interest, Mayoral appointments, the annual budget along with Prop J legislation, fees, taxes and transfer of functions, personnel matters within the Mayor’s Office, drafting Charter amendments and other legislation, and questions about the effect of federal and state legislation. Advice also involves special projects, such as establishing the Working Families Credit Program, fixing the City’s public warning siren system, and determining the effects of FEMA’s floodplain mapping.