Carlsbad City Attorney Retiring

Carlsbad City Attorney Ron Ball was hired 26 years ago when Mary Casler was just concluding as Mayor and former Mayor Bud Lewis was just entering office and the day before the people of Carlsbad adopted the Growth Management ordinance which became the road map for guiding development for the next 26 years and beyond.

At that time, the City was less than half of its current size. Ball worked as assistant city attorney until 1991 when the City Council appointed him as its second full time City Attorney in the City’s history.

This past March, Ball was given a seven percent pay increase after his salary had been frozen for four years. At the end of the year he'll leave a position with a base salary of $252,992.

During his tenure with the City Ball has worked for three mayors (Casler, Lewis and Mayor Hall), thirteen city council elections, two city clerks, four city treasurers, six police chiefs, three city managers, two fire chiefs, four city engineers, three planning directors, three human resources directors.

Ball's legacy includes the following legal projects:

• Defense and implementation of the City’s Growth Management Plan.
• Initiated litigation leading to the citizen’s vote and removal of the wildly unpopular Split Pavilion.
• Creation of the State’s first infrastructure financing district.
• The City’s first development agreement for the development of the amusement park. 
• The City’s second development agreement for the development of the Poseidon desalination plant.
• Defense and implementation of the Enhancement Plan.
• Drafting and implementing provisions of the City charter.
• Participation in proceedings before the California Energy Commission both in the 1990’s and in the 2000’s.

Mr. Ball said “It has been a wonderful experience having dealt with so many varied and exciting legal issues but most of all to have a City Council that is so wise and continues to make good decisions based on what is in the best interests of the citizens of the City of Carlsbad.” 

Mayor Hall congratulated him on building such a successful top notch legal office consisting of Assistant City Attorneys Jane Mobaldi, Paul Edmonson and Ron Kemp. The office has over a century of collective public law experience.

Ball's Path to City Attorney Started in Civil Engineering

Ball graduated from Stanford University with a degree in civil engineering and after practice in the public and private sector, returned to the University of California, Berkley to obtain a master’s degree in business administration. 

After graduation, he worked in private industry in both manufacturing and mortgage banking. A North Carolina real estate attorney challenged him to return to law school. He did and graduated from the University of Santa Clara. He began private practice with a small firm in the San Francisco bay area.

In 1980, he began his career in public service becoming an attorney for the County of Mendocino. While in Mendocino County, he traveled to a business meeting in Coronado and decided San Diego was where he wanted to raise his family.  Within a year, he was hired by the City of Carlsbad. 

Ball's wife Connie is a deputy city clerk for the City of Del Mar. They have two children, Sara, 30, and Tyler, 26.  

Taken from a City of Carlsbad Press Release