This week sees the council facing a consent item on the city’s contract with Best, Best and Krieger for the city attorney services provided for the most part over the last 26 years by Harriet Steiner.
According to the staff report, the city attorney costs are billed through a contract with a law firm through time and materials basis. There is a great amount of variability on costs year to year.
The budgeted amount for general legal services for this year was $504,558. City staff believes that it is likely that the amount budgeted for next year will be similar.
According to the staff report, “Compensation varies depending on the type of service provides, but the rate for basic city attorney services will be $190/hour, compared to the current $180/hour.
They add, “Non-basic services will be billed according to the individual attorney performing the service and will range from $240 to $315. In addition, rather than billing at an hourly rate for attendance at City Council meetings, the City will be charged a flat rate of $800 per meeting. Over the course of a year, the flat rate for meetings will provide savings to the City.”
The staff report also provides a history of the relationship between Harriet Steiner and the city and the search last year after the demise of McDonough Holland and Allen that resulted in the hiring of Harriet Steiner through her new firm of Best, Best and Krieger.
Staff writes: “From 1986 to the summer of 2010, the City contracted with McDonough Holland and Allen (MHA) to utilize the legal services of Harriet Steiner and a team of public law attorneys at the firm. However, during the summer of 2010, MHA dissolved, and the public law team, including Steiner, moved to the firm of Best Best and Krieger (BBK). Since that time, the City has had an interim agreement in place with Best Best and Krieger, while the City Council engaged in a process to determine a permanent solution.”
The report continues: “After research and discussion about the ways in which the City could receive legal services and what legal services are most critical, the City Council developed and released a Request for Qualifications in late winter of 2011. Nine firms submitted qualifications. Of these, the Council chose to interview four firms in June of 2011. Upon conclusion of the interview process, the Council chose to negotiate with Best Best and Krieger, with Harriet Steiner as the primary city attorney. The attached contract is the result of those negotiations and is recommended for approval.”
The Vanguard now believes, based primarily as to what has occurred in the last six to twelve months, that the city council ought to have a public discussion as to whether it time for change.
For starters, the city has been undergoing a massive change in leadership from the council to the city manager and now the finance director. There are of course two schools of thought here, one is that Harriet Steiner is the one who, as city attorney knows where the proverbial bodies are buried, can therefore be an asset in helping reform.
Moreover, in a time of new council and city management leadership, she remains the one with the institutional memory.
On the other hand, as we just noted, perhaps it is simply the case now that Harriet Steiner is part of the problem – and in fact, a part of a number of different problems that are a hindrance rather than an asset to change.
The Zipcar situation has largely resolved itself in a manner favorable to the city, but it is true that the original contract was not nearly as tight as it should have been. And in fact, as many pointed out, what was contained in the written contract was not what the city was purporting it to be.
The city may have had oral assurances, but the city attorney left language wide open that could have exposed the city to enormous liabilities and commitments.
Then you have the DCEA (Davis City Employees’ Association) impasse that will likely have cost the city about $800,000.
The impasse was the city’s screw-up. They imposed impasse before they had exhausted other remedies. And frankly, they used impasse at the wrong time, with the wrong bargaining group. They should have used it with the firefighters at the start of the process, rather than the rank and file at the end, to simply bring them up to the inadequate contract that the rest had.
As we noted at the time, the council pays staff and the city attorney to advise them how to proceed in such technical matters. At least one councilmember from that time questioned the advice they got from staff.
As City Attorney, Harriet Steiner ought to bear primary responsibility for this mistake that has cost the city nearly $1 million. And yet, to date we do not believe anyone has faced any kind of consequence.
Then we have the continuing DACHA (Davis Area Cooperative Housing Association), mess with the city claiming one figure for legal costs and David Thompson and Luke Watkins claiming another. We can debate all day as to whose fault those expenditures are.
However, what is clear is that it appears that David Thompson caught Harriet Steiner in an error.
As he noted, “I have all of the information and to me it’s pretty clear that Harriet is not telling the truth. Her remarks are preposterous.”
He added, “It’s clear that 57 submitted documents were omitted, amounting to 420 pages of testimony.”
The Vanguard did not get an opportunity to view the documents, but several who have, have informed the Vanguard that it appears a large quantity of documents were omitted.
According to Mr. Thompson, “63% of the testimony provided to the City of Davis by Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation (TPCF), Neighborhood Partners (NP) and other parties for the DACHA Dissolution Hearing were omitted by the City Attorney from submission to the California Attorney General.”
He adds, “Among the 400 missing pages are all the rent rolls, all the minutes of board and membership meetings and most of the evidences of wrongdoing and alleged illegal actions by DACHA and City staff.”
“Without having these missing documents the Attorney General is completely prevented from having the evidence and proof of the eligibility and validity of; membership votes, board of director votes, legal quorums, improperly called meetings, self-dealing transactions, illegal loans, and numerous other acts which are at the heart of the two lawsuits against DACHA and the City,” he said.
Of course, Harriet Steiner denied the allegations.
She claims, “The city did in fact send everything it received, including anything submitted by the Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation and Neighborhood Partners.”
“The city sent every single piece of paper to the attorney general,” Ms. Steiner told the Enterprise in Late April. “We sent everything that was part of that hearing transcript to the attorney general.
“(We) put together everything that was involved in the hearing process, including all of things that were submitted by David (Thompson).”
When asked to comment that it did not appear to be the case, the Vanguard received no response.
This issue aside, the Vanguard has long had concerns as to the work that Ms. Steiner performed on DACHA.
There is an additional problem here as well, and that is that the city contract actually at least tacitly awards and incentivizes lawsuits. Ms. Steiner and her firm are paid by the hour. She gives legal advice to the city. And when the legal advice leads to lawsuits, she receives money for that as well.
Some cities have attempted to deal with this inherent conflict of interest, by separating their advice attorney from their litigation attorney. Davis does not do this.
We also note two other incidents in which Ms. Steiner was at the center of controversy.
There was the the city’s last-second legal brief by City Attorney Harriet Steiner legal brief on the legality of the voter referendum on what where the city attorney wrote, “In our opinion, the City’s newly-adopted water rates are not subject to challenge by referendum.”
However, not everyone agrees with that legal opinion. Even Harriet Steiner acknowledges there is a lack of case law, “We must note that there are no post-Proposition 218 cases that are directly on point.”
Her argument is that the absence of reference to referendum in Prop 218 suggests a continuation of prior case law.
“Proposition 218 expressly allows initiatives to reduce or repeal any local tax, assessment, fee or charge. However, Proposition 218 only addresses initiatives and it is silent with respect to the power of the referendum.”
Harriet Steiner opines, “In our opinion, this silence leads to the conclusion that prior case law is still valid and that water and other utility rates adopted pursuant to Proposition 218 are not subject to challenge by referendum.”
Michael Harrington, a Davis aviation law attorney and former city councilmember who has headed up the referendum along with Ernie Head, sent the Vanguard a very strongly-worded response.
He said: “My legal research before prosecuting the referendum indicated that we had a valid and effective avenue to force repeal or a freeze on the hikes pending an election.”
Ultimately, the city chose to sidestep the controversy, however, it triggered a good amount of anger.
Mr. Harrington would later email the city stating, “The City Attorney memo is a direct attack on the civil rights to petition our government and to vote. A violation of a constitutionally protected civil right is actionable and leads to damages, declaratory and injunctive relief.”
He added: “If that memo is not retracted in full, the voters have been harmed, and legal action would be available if the victims wished to sue.”
The timing of the brief, dated November 15, angered many who saw it as a last-second attempt by the city to thwart the will of at least 3800 to 4800 residents who participated either in the Prop 218 process or signed the referendum petition.
Finally, as the city once again takes up the Crown Castle issue, many have been critical of the city for failing to fight back against Crown Castle as hard as they could.
Councilmember Dan Wolk, in contrast to his colleagues and legal staff to the city, believes that the issue is more complicated legally than many think.
A number of other communities have been much more aggressive and willing to challenge Crown Castle and other entities on these types of matters. However, the City of Davis and the city council is concerned with finances right now, and believe that legal battles would not be worthwhile in the face of deep cuts already expected this June.
In fairness to Harriet Steiner, this is as much about the council’s risk aversion as her legal advice, but at the same time a more aggressive position by the City Attorney may have emboldened the council not to lie down on this issue.
The bottom line is that, after 26 years, it is time for the City of Davis to look toward a different direction. This may be the opportunity to do so. It appears the city needs a fresh start.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I agree. Oh, be sure you add in the $2.2 million she cost the taxpayers as a result of her handling the Eoff litigation about 10 years. Harriot, I still have that file.
Mr Herrintun conveniently leaves out the fact that the City owns the property paid for thru the settlement, leases it for farming, and probably acquired it for the same or a lesser rate/acre than some of the property that the City has acquired for “open space” preservation. But those would be inconvenient truths….
I’m beginning to think it’s time to try some new folks in several leadership positions. We’ve gotten a good start with three council members and some new top staff. Sometimes “institutional memory” is overrated and is just an avenue for contentiousness.
Maybe it’s time for Harriet, Sue and Stephen to move on and give others a chance to work more as a team for Davis than today’s mix does. You suggest that Harriet is part of the problem; from your accounting, it appears she is the city’s biggest legal problem.
And how about establishing a city attorney staff position to handle the routine city business (attending meetings, reviewing ordinances, procurement contracts, etc. and the other stuff for which Best, Best & Krieger–remember them!–bills us nearly $200 an hour)?
With a less-experienced attorney working full time on salary, more of that half-million-dollar pot can go toward contracts for more exotic legal services.
(We obviously need new leadership in our affordable housing program following decades of poor development and disinterested management and oversight–and many millions of wasted tax dollars.
Added to this history that generated windfall profits for insiders and only a tiny amount of housing still in our inventory after all these years, the DACHA fiasco reveals that our best solution would be to get out of the business completely.
I’ve just gotten a look at the new Great Wall of Davis, looking south from Second Street across the train tracks and I-5. We need more apartments, but what are we thinking will come of a massive, low-income housing project? This looks like yet another Davis affordable project headed for disaster. The city staff and council better stay on top of this one much better than they did the DACHA project.)
hpierce: It would be helpful to us if you were not in effect, speaking in tongues.
Just Saying:
Two points in response. First, a few years ago I analyzed costs of in-house versus contract city attorneys and found that city’s pay a lot more for in-house attorneys.
Second, as an attorney friend of mine pointed out over the weekend, $200 an hour is actually quite inexpensive. Most attorneys you are looking at more than twice that as an hourly rate. I believe they are able to charge that low an amount primarily because they are insured hours whereas most attorneys are kind of hit and miss with respect to billable hours.
[quote]hpierce: It would be helpful to us if you were not in effect, speaking in tongues. [/quote]I don not understand your referent (are you ‘speaking in tongues?). Mr Harrington spoke of the Eoff litigation, citing a 2.2 million dollar figure (which I question, as should you). He implies that it was a cash payment, completely devoid of what the issues were. That litigation called for the acquisition of real property, at fair market value, for farmland north of I-80, near the bypass. You do not question Mr H’s statement, but you ‘accuse’ me of speaking in tongues, whatever THAT means. Mr H says he has “documentation”. I attest that I have given you more factual information in this post than he has.
It seems that you have more information on this that could be shared, the speaking in tongues reference could have been characterized as inside baseball. It wasn’t an accusation so much as a plea to get someone to share more than vague nuances on this. I have given up on asking Mr. Harrington to share various back stories with the class and hoped you might be more willing to.
BTW, David your analysis of in-house costs vs. contract is ‘spot-on’. For over 26 years, we have had a FIRM, with hugely broad experience and expertise, for legal services. If anyone had seen the performance of Lou Green, Larry Klose, or some of the previous in-house city Attorneys the City has had, no sensible person would suggest going back to that model.
The count on the missing DACHA docs is now up to 65 documents containing 474 pages of testimony. That is 66% of the testimony was omitted by the City Attorney.
I am on my fourth run through of what the City Attorney sent to the AG versus what was sent to the City Council. Of course my count is an undercount because I can only count the documents sent by Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation , Neighborhood Partners and those who copied me on what they sent to Council. I suspect there were a number of people who sent documentation to Council that did not copy me.
The truth is that the City Attorney’s omission is a major issue.
David Thompson, President
Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
In updating the story, I will let people know I sat down with Mr. Thompson and viewed the documents on my own.
I will state this: there is no doubt that the City Attorney did not submit all of the documents.
It will be open to varying opinions whether they were required to do so.
David (Greenwald). But whether or not they were required to or not, what Harriet said was that she sent everything, so that part is not truthful, correct?
Based on what I saw, I do not believe these statements are true:
[quote]”The city did in fact send everything it received, including anything submitted by the Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation and Neighborhood Partners.”
“The city sent every single piece of paper to the attorney general,” Ms. Steiner told the Enterprise in Late April. “We sent everything that was part of that hearing transcript to the attorney general.[/quote]
However, I have not heard her side of the story.
May 14, 2012
To: Whom it may concern
Fr: David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
Re: DACHA Legal Costs – City Attorney not sharing full story
$906,000 Total Public funds expended on DACHA legal costs up to date
$180,000 Legal expenses defending DACHA by attorneys asked by City to help
$2,669,043 Total DACHA legal costs, other expenses, waste and lost income (Identified as of this date)
This report continues to be updated when information is located. The City Attorney continues to refuse to provide information requested to NP so we have to obtain it from other sources and make professional estimates.
The question should be what has DACHA cost the Citizens of Davis in legal costs paid from public funds in one form or another related to advice, strategy and efforts to achieve hiding or covering up the role of City staff in the activities of an illegal board and membership and improper and illegal outcomes.
I would like to confirm that the statements made by the City Attorney to the Enterprise are clearly not true.
“The city did in fact send everything it received, including anything submitted by the Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation and Neighborhood Partners.”
“The city sent every single piece of paper to the attorney general,” Ms. Steiner told the Enterprise in Late April. “We sent everything that was part of that hearing transcript to the attorney general.
Will the City Attorney be willing to make those same statements under oath?
The billing in December 2011 by Steiner’s firm for work on DACHA just that month was $29,309.66.
At that billing rate and by election day Steiner’s firm will have billed the citizens of Davis another $146,548.30 just in 2012 for DACHA.
TPCF has asked the City to provide us with redacted records of how much was spent on various DACHA related activities which have not been clarified.
City Attorney will not tell us how much in public funds is being spent.
See http://www.community.coop/davis click on DACHA for more background on the DACHA debacle.
In my professional work with over 20 other municipalities and over 20 different countries including the United Nations I have never seen such a “third world” atmosphere as DACHA has brought to Davis, CA.
David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
Having forgotten to place seconds on the title deeds of trust for 52 Wildhorse affordable homes the City lost out on sharing in $11 million in gain. Boy could the City use $5.5 million dollars right now!
Harriet uses the word forgot in her letter. See later post.
Memo on Wildhorse Windfall from Harriet Steiner to City Council. This is on McDonough letterhead but the Letterhead does not transfer.
TO:Davis City Council
FROM:Harriet Steiner
RE:For Sale Affordable Housing – Community Equity Mortgages
DATE: October 20, 2002 (3)?
First, I would like to apologize for taking so long to return this information to you.
Last July the City Council requested that we look into the community equity mortgage deeds of trust for the for sale units to see if the city staff and my office had implemented the For Sale affordable program per Council direction. At this time, the Council was reviewing the Wildhorse for sale affordable units.
I have reviewed city files and files in my office. It has been difficult to follow exactly what happened with the community equity mortgage portion of the for sale program. Some of the actions and directions are clear; others lack any type of paper trail. To some extent, I am able to run down Council direction and staff’s and my office’s actions. To some extent, definitive answers are difficult because we have been unable to determine why certain actions were not implemented.
From page 2 of the memo from Harriet Steiner to Council.
“In May 1995, the City Council considered recommendations on the community equity mortgage. Two staff memos, copies of which are attached, made numerous recommendations to implement task force recommendations on the community equity mortgage. The Council considered two options: (1) an equity sharing note; and (2) a subsidy recapture note. Based on the minutes of the City Council meeting, the council directed staff and the city attorney to implement a “recapture system” in which the first loan would be the developer contribution and the development impact fees and the second loan would be the initial subsidy amount. The initial subsidy would be the difference between the affordable sales price and the initial market value of the unit. The second note would be at no interest. In addition, the Council direction called for an amendment to the owner occupancy requirements to require that buyers occupy the homes for as long as they own the home.”
“The owner occupancy requirements have been implemented. With respect to the recapture note, we can find no record in either the City files or in our files that this note was drafted or implemented.”
_____________________________________________________
Submitted by David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
From page 3 of the memo from Harriet Steiner to Council. Note use of “forgotten”.
“Finally, as Council is aware, considerable time and energy was spent during the mid and late 1990’s on the General Plan update and the housing issues associated with that update. It is possible that the “recapture note” was put on hold or, more likely, was delayed and then forgotten, because of the General Plan Update and Affordable Housing General Plan committee and, later, task force. However, as stated above, neither city files nor my files show any action on this matter after the Council action in 1995.”
Should citizens ‘forget” that we lost $5.5 million due the City Attorney not following the policy adoption and instructions of the City Council?
David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
Well, I obviously have not analyzed in-house vs. outhouse attorneys. How many hours of the $500,000 pot get billed at $180 and how many hours at the $240-$315 rate. Does this include ALL of the city’s legal costs? Including the contested amount of DACHA costs?
What’s the story on our history with in-house attorneys? What was their salary, health, etc., compared to the going rates? Did they screw up as badly as Harriet’s firm?
Billing Costs on DACHA since 2005
Citizens of Davis paid for 30 lawyers to work on DACHA. Here are some of the highest paid people with public funds from the City of Davis.
Harriet Steiner $260 per hour on DACHA (2005-2006)
Harriet Steiner $285 per hour on DACHA (2007)
Harriet Steiner $295 per hour on DACHA (2008
Nancy Lee $345 per hour on DACHA
Mark Gorton $350 per hour on DACHA
Patricia Elliot $375 per hour on DACHA
John Briggs $375 per hour on DACHA
Todd Fogarty $375 per hour on DACHA
Tom Mouzes $375 per hour on DACHA
I have billing records to show anyone who wants to visit my office.
David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
From the billing statements I have, almost all the hours for DACHA were billed by Harriet Steiner at either the $260, $285 or $295 during 2005-09.
There appears to be a standard billing rate of $145 per hour for Harriet’s work but from all of the DACHA billings for 2005-2009 I only spot one occasion when the billing for DACHA was done at the $145 per hour rate. On 10/26/05 Steiner billed for o.3 hours at the $145 rate.
All of the other billings were done at the non-standard rate of $26- rising to $295 rate.
So 99% of the DACHA costs were all billed at what appear to be premium rates.
David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
David T., how could people be billing at $375 an hour when that exceeds the premium rate maximum listed in the upcoming contract. Are the total DACHA billings falling within the $500,000 a year budget for legal expenses?
Dear Just Saying
What I have listed are the billings from McDonough to the City for their 18 lawyers at the rates that the City paid for their work.
I have asked the City to describe how they are paying for the costs of DACHA and they will not respond.
I can only assume that the City is paying for these efforts from different pots of money.
At this point it is quite possible that DACHA’s costs are not being paid from City Attorneys legal budget.
There’s all sorts of ways to spend public funds.
That’s why an independent investigation is needed to looks at DACHA with onee of the topics being who authorised who to use public funds for what and where did the money come from?
David Thomposn, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
Sorry for not checking my spelling,
David
hpierce: so you do remember the Eoff litigation fisaco? The City Attorney failed to tender the defense and indemnity of the City to the developer whose project caused the flooding of the Eoff lands down towards the river, and she then talked the CC into buying the land to get out of the case. She told us over and over it was a slam dunk, and the court tentative ruling was against the City on liability.
Later, as I was leaving the CC, I ran across the development contract and thought it was strange that the developer did not participate in defending the city. I tried to point this error out to the CC, including getting an expert opinion from an attorney, and they did nothing about it; they let her off scott-free in the spring of 2004. The staff recommended that the CC use water or sewer money (if memory serves me right) to fund that purchase, and it was done.
The tender was a basic thing, and she did not do it. I never was able to determine if her firm also represented any of the involved developers (remember, her firm represented scads of real estate and developer interests), so I cannot comment on why she completely failed to tender the defense and indemnity pursuant to the contract. Such tenders are routinely done under these facts and issues.
I can tell you she fought me on bringing it to the attention of the CC, and for some time she refused to recuse herself and stay out of the CC closed session.
The current CC should pull this week’s contract from consent, and reset the hearing for this summer after the new CC has a few meetings under its belt.
It’s hard to respect the city attorney or have faith in her judgement and legal acumen after she broke the law by refusing to release public documents on RYCA/park purchase.
One can only wonder how often she has hidden information that should have been made public.
Knowing she was dishonest once, to the detriment of city residents who are footing her bills, and to the detriment of city council, why should
we continue to rely on her at all?
Wow. What a history of incompetence and/or misbehavior. There is no good excuse why Harriet Steiner did not respond to nor forward on hundreds of pages on the DACHA case to the Attorney General. It is inexcusable for her to interfere with a fair process where all evidence needs to be presented and heard so that both sides can weigh in. It would appear that Steiner had no good responses to the evidence turned in by Mr. Thompson on the DACHA case. For Steiner to try to simply to dump all of that evidence is simply not acceptable.
A big part of the City’s budgetary problems are probably because of huge financial losses due to City staff that don’t have the skills to handle the job. The City needs to clean up its act and keep the competent employees and weed out the incompetent employees.
Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation have submitted our evidence to the Attorney General of the City omitting 66.00% of the submitted testimony re the DACHA Dissolution.
California law requires a complete submission of the testimony to be sent.
TPCF certainly believes that the State of California was provided with documents by the City Attorney and asked to make an important decision.
Regretfully, for both Davis citizens and justice the Attorney General was given extremely incomplete and therefore misleading information as part of an attempt to obtain what would appear to be an improper decision.
The following citizens have now visited my office and looked at the evidence I have provided. All of them agree that a substantial amount of information was omitted by the City Attorney.
Former Mayor Bill Kopper; former Council member Jerry Kaneko; former Council member Michael Harrington; former Mayor Ann Evans; former Commissioner Eileen Samitz; former City Task Force Member Kevin Wolf; former Citizen of the Year Dorothy Peterson and her husband Al Peterson; Davis Vanguard, David Greenwald; Past Recipient, Realtor of the Year, Marcelo Campos.
All members of the Council and candidates for council are invited to come and see for yourselves.
Anyone else who would like to inspect the evidence is welcome to come. Call me at 757-2233 to make an appointment.
David Thompson, President, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
Is anyone at City Hall watching the legal expenditures on DACHA?
Look at the many curious ways in which City staff allowed our public funds to be used. And we still don’t know other ways that City staff have been using our public funds on DACHA.
DACHA was repaying its loan of public funds at the rate of $6,427 a month.
The DACHA board (a majority were delinquent at the time so according to the bylaws should have been automatically removed from the board) in an illegal quorum asked the City to forbear them repaying the borrowed public funds. So for about 16 months DACHA did not need to repay its mortgage.DACHA said they wanted to use the cash flow to pay their lawyer.
But a look at the DACHA accounts show they owe their lawyer $94,000 so it looks like they used about $116,000 of public funds for other purposes. They did increase their delinquencies from $38,000 to $75,000.
So far no one on the Council seems interested in discovering what happened to $116,000 of our public funds?
An independent investigation is sorely needed.
David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
[quote]”We sent everything that was part of that hearing transcript to the attorney general.”[/quote]
Notice the words “part of the HEARING TRANSCRIPT”…
[quote]It will be open to varying opinions whether they were required to do so.[/quote]
How true…
David Thompson, aren’t you weary from the big DACHA rip off that cratered your business while public funds were being stolen or misspent ? I am so sick of it all The water rate increases were another huge ripoff Only when certainastarte are fired will things get better Souza is a big part of the lack of accountability but he will be gone soon Saylor and Souza nearly destroyed the city’s finances
Correction Staff are fired
And Ms. Steiner said:
“(We) put together everything that was involved in the hearing process, including all of things that were submitted by David (Thompson).”
Ms. Steiner’s incomplete package was broken down by the City Attorney into three categories:
Public Communication received before the hearing
Public Communication received during the hearing and
Public Communication received after the hearing
The 65 missing document containing 465 pages of public testimony were in each category.
The City omission harms DACHA the most because it adds one more dark shadow to the role of City staff and poses questions to the Attorney General’s office that should not have been raised if the law had been followed by the City Attorney.
David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
There is absolutely no question that the current City Attorney must be terminated. The comments thus far have touched on a small but sound sample of reasons. Here is another. The current City Attorney has a history of conforming legal opinions to suit the desires of the council majority, such as the preposterous notion that the water referendum could not challenge water rates. Citizens really need to ask themselves, which candidates will support hiring or retaining a new attorney? Also, if done correctly, an in-house City Attorney can be hired for a fraction of what the City has been wasting on legal services. The City could also join a pool for legal services. The League of Cities helps coordinate these services.