UPDATE: On July 24, 2025, Sheriff Corpus reversed course and issued this statement, calling for her removal hearing to be open to the public.
UPDATE: On July 21, 2025, San Mateo County Attorney John Nibbelin responded to FAC’s letter, stating that “the County agrees . . . that the Removal Hearing provided for under Section 415.2 of the County Charter and the Removal Procedures should be open to the public.” The response adds, “If you do choose to file a lawsuit, the County Attorney’s Office will not oppose it.”
However, Mr. Nibbelin also stated that attorneys representing Sheriff Corpus in connection with the Removal Hearing had informed the County “that the Sheriff has demanded that the hearing be closed.” He wrote that, in the County’s view, “the Removal Procedures adopted by the Board of Supervisors do not provide a mechanism to overrule the Sheriff’s objection to an open hearing.”
After receiving the County’s response, FAC wrote to Sheriff Corpus’s attorneys, urging them to withdraw their request to close the Removal Hearing by July 23, 2025. See that letter here.
On July 16, 2025, FAC sent this letter to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors urging it to reject San Mateo Sheriff Christina Corpus’s request to close her removal hearing to the public.
The letter states: “Barring the press and public from the Removal Hearing as Sheriff Corpus has requested would violate the First Amendment right of access to public proceedings, undermine a panoply of compelling public interests in administering the Removal Hearing transparently, and needlessly shut San Mateo citizens out of a key phase of a process they voted to begin in Measure A.”