Three new members of the City Council were sworn in Tuesday night Dec. 13 and the council chose Katrina Foley as the new mayor and Sandra Genis as the new mayor pro-tem.
Joining the council for four-year terms is returning Council Member Genis, former Councilman and Assemblyman Allan Mansoor and longtime community leader and attorney John Stephens.
The trio of new council members join Mayor Foley and Council Member Jim Righeimer on the five-member body.
“I am so honored and blessed to be serving as mayor in a city that I love so dearly,” Mayor Foley said. “I look forward to working with my colleagues on the council to create an inclusive environment at City Hall for residents and businesses alike. I look forward to partnering with the business, tourism and arts community to enhance and further define our community as the City of the Arts.”
Foley, who was elected to the council in 2014, has a long history of community involvement and was first elected to City Council in 2004 and re-elected in 2008 before running successfully for the Newport-Mesa school board in 2010.
Foley is president of The Foley Group, a Professional Law Corporation in Newport Beach. The Foley Group, PLC provides services in artist and athlete management, employment litigation, family law, education advocacy and non-profit compliance matters.
Genis, who was raised in Costa Mesa and attended Estancia High School, was first elected to the City Council in 1988 and served as mayor from 1989 to 1990. She was re-elected in 1992 and ran again in 2012 and re-elected in 2016 and both times was the top vote getter.
She is a retired city planner and has worked on a number of community causes, such as the preservation of Fairview Park and keeping the OC Fairgrounds in public ownership.
Mansoor was first elected to the City Council in 2002 and was appointed mayor in 2005 and again in 2007 and 2009. Also an Estancia graduate, Mansoor served as an Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy. He was elected to the 74th District of the State Assembly in 2010 and served until 2014.
This is Stephens’ first stint on the City Council after a narrow loss in 2012. As a resident of Costa Mesa since 1989, he has deep community ties and has served on the city’s Pension Oversight Committee, the Costa Mesa High School Foundation, Costa Mesans for Responsible Government and is a founding member of the St. John the Baptist Finance Council and Pastoral Council.
He was a leader of the “No” on the Charter campaigns in 2012 and 2014, including intervening in a lawsuit between the City of Costa Mesa and the Orange County Registrar of Voters in 2012 and is a member of the Orange County Bar Association’s Judiciary Committee, which evaluates judicial candidates for the governor.
A longtime attorney, his firm Stephens Friedland LLP employees four full‐time lawyers and a staff of 10 employees.
Both Stephen Mensinger and Gary Monahan officially ended their council terms on Tuesday. Mensinger was most recently mayor beginning in 2014, and Monahan was appointed mayor three times in 1998, 2003 and 2011.
