LYNNWOOD — The city’s legal expenses have gone up dramatically in the past few years, caused, in part, by a lawsuit over a methadone clinic and a settlement with a former fire chief.
The legal expenses have grown to $424,429 in 2003 from $293,095 in 2000, an increase of nearly 45 percent.
A legal expenses task force, made up of three City Council members, has looked into the matter and found little oversight of the city attorney’s expenses in the past several years.
The task force’s report is being presented at tonight’s 7 p.m. City Council work session.
The task force also found the mayor authorized pay raises and amended the contract for the city attorney without promptly informing City Council, violating city rules.
The report recommends the city keep better track of attorney time, require billing breakdowns, not offer automatic contract continuations nor amendments and identify a manager to oversee the attorney’s office.
The task force found that the problems tracking city attorney expenses began during the tenure of former city attorney John Watts, an in-house attorney who left the job in 2000 and did not accurately record or charge for much of the professional time he gave to the city, the report states.
When current city attorney Greg Rubstello, with Odgen, Murphy, Wallace, of Seattle, was contracted to represent the city, a "September clause" allowing annual budgetary adjustments was added to the contract so that more accurate billing data could be collected.
But the contract has no useful cost-control measures built in because it’s an "open-ended" contract, and doesn’t state the amount of the type of work that is anticipated to occur under the contract, the report states.
And two significant contract adjustments in 2001 and 2002 that increased the attorney’s hourly fees by a total of 19 percent were not brought before the City Council for approval, as required by city law, the report states.
The report also states that detailed, itemized billing, required by the contract hasn’t been consistently provided or enforced.
The task force also found that for almost two years, while the assistant city administrator position was in flux, the city attorney did not report to anyone and that the position was "self-managed."
"This isn’t lack of management, this is no management," said council member Don Gough, who was chairman of the legal task force, which included council president Lisa Utter and council member Marty Nelson.
"These kind of problems happen when there are no contract managers, when the city attorney answers to no one and is out there doing his work and charging his bills," Gough said, who is an attorney himself.
Rubstello said he thought the task force did a good job and made good suggestions for changing the current system.
He added that many of the suggestions haven’t been specifically requested in the past.
"If the city wants more detailed billing, I would be happy to do that. In the past, they have not requested that," he said.
Rubstello said, as a matter of ethics, he left the management of his own contract to the city administration.
Mayor Mike McKinnon, who was in Portland, Ore. for several days, said Friday that he had not yet read the report, but was looking forward to hearing the task force’s recommendations.
"If there was a situation where we should have notified the council, we would certainly have intended to," McKinnon said Friday by phone.
"Our intention is to comply with the council’s wishes and comply with any contract. If the council didn’t get notified properly, it was some technicality we overlooked, I want to apologize to the council. We will make every attempt to notify them properly."
Last year the city was sued by a company that wanted to open a methadone clinic near Alderwood Mall. The city lost and is appealing the case to the state Supreme Court.
The city also settled a lawsuit brought by former fire Chief Bob Meador after he was dismissed by the mayor for refusing to sign off on a building permit he said violated city code.
Reporter Pam Brice: 425-339-3439 or brice@heraldnet.com.
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