Career Highlights

• Serves as Assistant City Attorney to the City of Marina. Advises the City’s Planning Commission on development applications, land use regulations, open meeting laws, public contracts, and conflicts of interest.
• Serves as general counsel to the Mendocino City Community Services District, which provides groundwater and wastewater management services to the residents of Mendocino.
• Serves as general counsel to the Ladera Recreation District, a special district providing pool, tennis, and other recreational facilities in San Mateo County.
• Served as Assistant City Attorney for the City of Cupertino. Drafted general plan and zoning code amendments and municipal ordinances.
• As Deputy City Attorney to the City of Half Moon Bay, advised the City in connection with temporary and permanent sewer easements to provide City wastewater transport beneath a private golf course property.
• Advises public agency decisionmakers on potential conflicts of interest under the Political Reform Act and common law, and compliance with Brown Act requirements for public meetings and closed sessions.
• Reviews staff reports, resolutions, and findings for agency actions on land use applications.
• Advises municipal and special district clients on CEQA, real estate, and land use matters, and on the imposition of taxes and fees.

Community Service, Publications, and Recognitions

• Northern California Super Lawyer Rising Star, 2022.
• Member, League of California Cities’ Committee on Attorney Development and Succession.
• Presenter, “Politically Astute, But Not Political … Politics and the Role of the City Attorney,” League of California Cities, City Attorney Spring Conference, Burlingame, CA, May 2025.
• Presenter, “Planning for Environmental Justice: Implementing SB 1000,” CLE International, California Land Use Conference, San Francisco. CA June 2024.
• Presenter, “’…And Other Duties as Required:’ Talking to Non-Clients,” League of California Cities, City Attorney Spring Conference, Monterey, CA, May 2023.
• Presenter, “Staffing a Public Meeting: From War Stories to Your Story,” League of California Cities, City Attorney Spring Conference, Carlsbad, CA, May 2022.
• Seph Petta, Remote Meetings under Brown Act, SMW In the Public Interest (Feb. 21, 2023).
• Mindy Jian and Seph Petta, Planning for Environmental Justice: Implementing SB 1000, SMW In the Public Interest (Jul. 26, 2022).
• Benjamin Gonzalez and Seph Petta, When Does Civic Discourse Cross the Line to Harassment? SMW in the Public Interest (Apr. 7 2021).
• Seph Petta, Processing Housing Construction Projects Under State and Local Shelter-in-Place Orders, SMW in the Public Interest (May 20, 2020).
• Katrina Tomas and Seph Petta, 5 Considerations for Preparation of Administrative Record, SMW in the Public Interest (Dec. 15, 2020).
• Sky Stanfield, Seph Petta and Sara Baldwin Auck, Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Inc., Charging Ahead: An Energy Storage Guide for Policymakers (Apr. 2017).
• Sky Stanfield, Erica McConnell, and Seph Petta, “A New Frontier: The Interconnection of Energy Storage,” Greentech Media (Jan. 4, 2018).
• Seph Petta, “Funding Public Transit in California After Proposition 26,” Public Law Journal (Vol. 36, No. 1, Winter 2013).

Bar Memberships

Member of the Bar of the State of California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

Education

UC Berkeley School of Law, JD, 2012

Georgetown University, BA in English, 2002

About Me

Mushroom foraging, birding and tidepooling — and watching my kids discover their own loves about being outdoors — are some of my favorite things.