Jon Welner is the co-lead of the California Land-Use Group at Mintz. He assists clients to successfully navigate the review process to obtain entitlements for development. He has significant experience with coastal development and the permitting of industrial and energy facilities. Jon also represents local governments in high-profile land use matters.

prevailing wage practitioners in the state. Jon regularly represents developers and trade associations before the Department of Industrial Relations and has negotiated numerous PLAs.

Jon has a long track record of public service. He is an elected official, serving as Mayor of the Town of Tiburon, and previously served as a senior official at the California Natural Resources Agency. Jon has served for many years in leadership roles at both the California and San Francisco Bar Associations

Hope Schmeltzer is a partner at Monchamp Meldrum LLP and an expert in land use, environmental, energy and public agency law.  Hope focuses on the development of complicated land use projects in the clean energy and transportation sector including renewable power generation, battery storage, EV charging stations, university hospitals and campuses, and brownfields redevelopment. Hope is a former state and federal environmental and land use regulatory attorney who provides clients with a deep understanding of governmental priorities and concerns.   Her work encompasses CEQA, NEPA, the Coastal Act, site remediation, federal and state agency permitting processes and local land use entitlements.  Prior to joining Monchamp Meldrum LLP, Hope served as Chief Counsel of the California Coastal Commission, Director of the Governor’s Clean Energy Green Team, Environmental Group Leader for the University of California’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Assistant Regional Counsel, U.S. E.P.A. Region 9, Hazardous Waste Branch. She also served for 12 years on San Francisco’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), which enabled the creation of CleanPowerSF, and worked in the environmental groups of Landels, Ripley & Diamond, LLP and McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, LLP.

Karen Mouritsen is the BLM’s State Director for California. Previously, she was the Eastern States Director and Deputy Assistant Director for Energy, Minerals, and Realty Management. During her career with the BLM, Mouritsen served as the acting Alaska State Director, acting New Mexico State Director, and acting Associate District Manager for both the Las Vegas District in Nevada and Medford District in Oregon. She was also the BLM Liaison to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management and the Budget Officer. Before joining the BLM, Mouritsen spent 10 years as an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor. She attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated from the College of Engineering and earned her juris doctor degree from the School of Law.

Commissioner Kourtney Vaccaro is serving her first term on the California Energy Commission. Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Vaccaro in March 2022 to serve as the Energy Commission’s attorney member. She worked as an advisor to Commissioner Karen Douglas since 2019. Since 2009, Vaccaro has held multiple positions at the Energy Commission, including Chief Counsel, assistant executive director of compliance assistance and enforcement, attorney, and hearing advisor. She was a partner at Vu Vaccaro LLP from 2012 to 2013. She worked at the Fair Political Practices Commission between 2006 and 2009, where she served as enforcement division chief, assistant chief of enforcement, and senior commission counsel. Vaccaro worked as an attorney at Best Best & Krieger LLP; Freeman, D’Aiuto, Pierce, Gurev & Keeling; and Kronick Moskovitz Tiedemann & Girard. She earned a Juris Doctor degree and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley.