Who is Brett Deforest Maxfield? Brett is running for the California State Legislature for the 74th Assembly District as the Democratic Candidate against the Republican Incumbent, Martin Garrick. The State Assembly makes the laws of California and the State’s budget. Brett is married to a wonderful and beautiful wife, Heather Christine Maxfield. They own a home in Encinitas and have two golden retrievers. You may have seen them walking on the beach at Cardiff.
Brett was raised in Santa Barbara where he graduated from public high school in 1990. During high school Brett was an activist for preserving open space along the coast and helped in getting the Carpinteria Bluffs made an open space preserve rather than getting developed into a condominium complex.
After high school Brett attended UC Berkeley where he studied American history and graduated in 1994 with his BA. Immediately after graduating Brett taught American history to 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at a private school in San Francisco. In 1996, Brett was admitted to UCLA School of Law from which he received his JD degree in 1999. At UCLA, Brett was a volunteer law clerk for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Environmental Crimes and OSHA Division as well as volunteer law clerk for the Los Angeles County Legal Aid.
After being admitted to the State Bar of California and obtaining his California Real Estate Broker License, Brett moved back to Santa Barbara and worked for the County of Santa Barbara’s Department of Public Works doing its real estate transactions. In 2005, Brett was laid off as a result of the State Budget cuts which cancelled the majority of public works projects the County had planned.
Within months of leaving the County of Santa Barbara, Brett was hired by the City of San Diego’s Department of Real Estate Assets as an Associate Property Agent. While working for the City of San Diego, Brett received an education on government corruption. San Diego’s Department of Real Estate Assets repeatedly asked Brett to sell and lease the City’s properties at below market value to make political backers personally rich at the public’s expense. Due to his refusal to facilitate these fraudulent schemes and due to his whistle blowing activities regarding the same, Mayor Sanders’ administration wrongfully terminated Brett in March of 2006 in violation of the Brown Act. The State of California has taken Brett’s case against the City of San Diego which is still pending. Matt Potter of the San Diego Reader has written several articles about Brett and his attempts to protect the public interest while working for the City of San Diego. These articles can be found online at the San Diego Reader’s website: http://www.sdreader.com. While working for the City of San Diego, Brett chose to be a member of the MEA Union.
After leaving the City of San Diego’s employment in the Spring of 2006, Brett received an LLM in Business and Corporate Law from the University of San Diego’s School of Law in 2007 and worked for the plaintiff securities and consumer advocacy law firm of Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman and Robbins from December 2006 until this summer when he left to pursue his shot for the Assembly fulltime. Also Brett earned a MBA from USD’s Graduate Business School.
