by Garth Meyer
The new Redondo Beach city attorney is in place, still doing her old job, too.
Joy Ford, who was sworn in April 1 to replace five-term city attorney Mike Webb, has already extended a conditional offer to her own replacement as quality of life prosecutor. One person was interviewed. While the background check awaits, Ford fills both roles.
“The volume has been high. However, the transition has been seamless,” she said. “I have been working extra hours on weekends and nights to make sure everything gets done in a timely manner.”
Ford worked for Webb for more than 10 years.
Her first job out of law school, in 2010, was as a volunteer for almost two years at the L.A. city attorney’s office. Her boss was eventual Redondo Beach city prosecutor Melanie Chavira.
“All I wanted to do was become a prosecutor,” Ford said.
She lived with her parents in Carson and got the early work experience. She had known what she wanted to do since sixth-grade mock trial.
A few years earlier, when Ford’s mother came home from a parent/teacher conference about her first-grade daughter, the girl was in trouble.
“Your teacher said you are so bossy,” she said.
“I wasn’t bossy, just a leader,” Ford said.
She now leads a Redondo Beach office of two assigned city attorneys – one civil, one criminal – two senior deputies for each, and the quality of life (crimes) prosecutor.
Lawsuits currently in play for the city include subjects such as the future of the AES power plant site, and an appeal of a judge’s ruling that exempts charter cities like Redondo Beach from State Bill(s) 9 and 10 – about local control of housing construction.
“A lot of lawsuits,” Ford said.
She predicted the next to be resolved would be the SB9 appeal, filed by Cali-
fornia State Attorney General Rob Bonta.
Ford is married with two children, age 6 and 8. She was a philosophy & rhetoric major at Berkeley, then went to law school at U.C. – Davis.
“‘What is rhetoric,’ I asked, and they said, ‘the study of argumentation.’ ‘That sounds great.”
Ford named her favorite philosophers as Emmanuel Kant, Socrates and David Hume, “Though he mainly just angered me.”
In mock trial, which she participated in through high school, “Prosecutor was always my first choice,” she said. “The prosecutor has the higher burden.”
She became Redondo Beach quality of life prosecutor in 2016.
“I am proud of everything I have accomplished,” Ford said. “My staff is amazing. City departments and the city manager have been great to work with.” ER
