SANTA CLARA — Former city attorney Brian Doyle, a fierce critic of the San Francisco 49ers’ management of Levi’s Stadium, is suing the city two years after his firing, contending the Santa Clara City Council terminated him unlawfully and in retaliation for whistleblowing.
The city and the NFL team were locked in several legal battles during Doyle’s four-year tenure, and his lawsuit said he sought “to hold the San Francisco 49ers to account” — well before the political makeup of the council began to shift.
Doyle said he first became skeptical of the City Council’s motives regarding the NFL team ahead of a Dec. 8, 2020, council meeting in which Councilmember Raj Chahal had requested a closed-door meeting to discuss a lawsuit involving the California Voting Rights Act and a proposed change in electing city councilmembers.
The request to put it on the Dec. 8 agenda was denied, prompting Chahal to ask for it to be placed on the Dec. 15 agenda, which strengthened Doyle’s belief that there was a “quid pro quo” agreement among five councilmembers and third parties acting on behalf of the 49ers ownership, the lawsuit said.
“The agreement was to form an alliance of candidates who would take official action on behalf of the city to favor the 49ers financially at the expense of the city, including among other things the favorable settlement of lawsuits against the city by the 49ers, in exchange for millions of dollars of purportedly ‘independent’ campaign expenditures,” according to...
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