Long Beach City Attorney Dawn McIntosh and City Prosecutor Doug Haubert will serve the city in their respective roles for the next four years.
The City Council this week appointed McIntosh and Haubert to their official positions after no other candidates filed to run against them in the June 2 primary election. Their four-year terms will begin on Dec. 17, according to the city clerk’s office.
The candidate nomination period closed on March 6. But the city clerk’s office received only one nomination for city attorney and one nomination for city prosecutor — the incumbents. Under these circumstances, the Long Beach municipal code says that if no one or only one candidate files nomination papers for a position, a write-in candidate is permitted to obtain and submit nomination papers by 5 p.m. on March 13. No candidates filed nomination papers for write-in candidacy for either the city attorney or prosecutor roles, according to a staff report.
The City Council then has the option to appoint to the office the person who has been nominated, which they did for McIntosh and Hauber during the Tuesday, March 17, meeting.
McIntosh was first elected as Long Beach’s city attorney in June 2022, becoming the city’s first woman to serve in the role.
The city attorney serves as the sole and exclusive legal advisor of Long Beach, the City Council, and all city commissions, committees, officers and employees, according to the city’s website. The office comprises five divisions, including departmental counsel, litigation, harbor, workers’ compensation, and administrative and financial services.
McIntosh has extensive legal experience in both public entities and in private practice, where she represented cities and governmental agencies, according to her biography. Throughout her career, she has handled many litigation matters in state and federal courts, including appeals. She also has extensive experience advising municipalities on environmental, land use, water rights, oil and gas, tidelands and constitutional issues. In 2016, she was named one of the top women attorneys in California.
McIntosh joined Long Beach in 2016, initially handling a wide variety of legal issues for the Port of Long Beach. She then went on to advise other city departments on legal issues. In July 2021, she was promoted to assistant city attorney, overseeing the harbor and litigation divisions.
Haubert, meanwhile, is a skilled attorney with decades of experience as a civil and criminal prosecutor, according to his biography. He was elected Long Beach city prosecutor in 2010, and then reelected in 2014, 2018 and 2022.
The city prosecutor’s office is responsible for prosecuting all adult misdemeanor crimes committed within the city of Long Beach. Examples of cases prosecuted by the city prosecutor include battery, theft, vandalism, DUI, drug possession, domestic violence, prostitution, brandishing a weapon, graffiti, hate crimes and code enforcement, according to the office’s website.
Haubert began his legal career as a deputy city prosecutor in Long Beach. He later joined a prominent municipal law firm, eventually becoming a partner of the firm while serving as city prosecutor and city attorney to several cities in Southern California.
He has served the state and Long Beach in many capacities. Before his election, for example, he served for six years on the California State Bar Executive Committee, Public Law Section. He also served on the Long Beach ethics task force, as well as the city’s airport advisory commission and civil service commission.
As city prosecutor, Haubert initiated the office’s gang prevention strategy, a three-part approach to reducing gang violence. Working with the Police Department, he secured court orders against violent criminal street gangs and increased gang prosecutions. And by partnering with school leaders, he also developed the Part Accountability and Chronic Truancy (PACT) program to reduce truancy and keep at-risk youth out of gangs.