San Luis Obispo City Council clarified its protocols to prevent future misconduct—accidental or otherwise—in the wake of Mayor Erica Stewart sharing a confidential SLO County grand jury report.
Council members unanimously adopted a resolution at the Sept. 15 meeting that revised the council policies and procedures manual to include two specific guidelines about how an elected official should handle grand jury materials and documents marked confidential.
“In the case of a grand jury report received by an elected official prior to the public release, the elected official shall discuss with the city manager, city attorney, or a grand jury designee before distributing further,” one of the changes to the information distribution section read.
The other addition was made to the manual’s chapter about confidentiality. It stressed that council members are legally obligated to keep private information, written or oral, secret as part of their official duties.
Stewart was under fire for sharing with a Cal Poly official a draft of the grand jury report about how the city manages unpermitted fraternity parties.
A final advisory opinion from the SLO Personnel Board recommended against censuring her. Councilmember Jan Marx then tried and failed to agendize a City Council discission about the mayor’s action.
Stewart proposed policy changes at the Aug. 18 City Council meeting.
“I know this has been a challenging conversation regarding my censure, and I know it’s been a lot of time and energy and detailed work for the city attorney and city manager and administration team as well,” she said at that meeting. “I do think there is still one more cleanup that we have to do based in this conversation of a grand jury.”
Neither City Council nor city staff mentioned the misstep during its brief discussion about the policy update on Sept. 15.
Ahead of the meeting, resident Kathie Walker—who originally obtained the public records that revealed the mayor’s alleged misconduct—told the City Council that staff didn’t provide the “complete history” behind the proposed policy changes.
“The report describes a need for ‘additional clarity’ and proposes requiring an elected official to consult the city manager or city attorney before distributing a grand jury report,” she wrote in a Sept. 13 letter. “This treats the matter as one disclosure by one elected official. The records reveal two separate confidentiality events involving the mayor, city management, and the City Attorney’s Office.”
Walker went on to claim that last year, a senior legal analyst with the city circulated confidential letters from the grand jury to the City Council and City Manager Whitney McDonald, among multiple staff members.
She criticized the proposed change to the policy that requires elected officials to discuss grand jury reports with the city manager, city attorney, or a grand jury representative before further distribution.
According to Walker, the amendment should cover more, including confidential findings received by the city manager, distribution by city employees, and collective staff review before public release.
“The city should not characterize this matter as a misunderstanding caused by unclear policy without first examining the explicit confidentiality instructions already provided and the city’s actions after receiving them,” Walker said. ∆
This article appears in Sept 17-24, 2026.
Lol. The city attorney and city manager are both named defendants in a whistleblower lawsuit alleging public corruption. Why are they even still employed? How much are taxpayers on the hook for their actions? This a completely corrupt administration. I’d be embarrassed to even be associated with any of them. God bless councilmenber Marx for send the mayor to the Personell board.