LYNNWOOD — The city of Lynnwood will solicit bids from new law firms in a move spurred by a dramatic increase in fees paid to its attorneys the past two years.
The City Council voted 5-2 July 26 to allow the contract with its law firm of the past four years, Ogden Murphy Wallace of Seattle, to expire at the end of the year.
The city will take bids from law firms that could include Ogden Murphy Wallace, and the new contract would begin Jan. 1.
Fees paid by the city of Lynnwood to its attorneys skyrocketed nearly 40 percent in 2002 and 2003. A council report attributes the increase to the way the contract was managed by two mayors, including current Mayor Mike McKinnon.
McKinnon says the City Council caused most of the increase by assigning more work to the law firm.
Fees the city paid to Ogden Murphy Wallace increased from $296,939 in 2001, to $394,360 in 2002, to $414,074 in 2003. The amount through May of this year was $170,599.
Councilman Ted Hikel called for the change. “The contract has flaws that are costing the city large amounts of money,” he said.
Lisa Utter, council president, voted against the motion, saying she wanted to give city officials more time to adjust the contract.
Three members of the City Council compiled an 80-page report that attributes the cost increase to several factors, particularly former mayor Tina Roberts-Martinez’s increase in 2001 of the number of days the attorneys work at Lynnwood City Hall from two days per week to four.
Hikel said some of the increases were caused by changes in personnel designations in the contract that were approved without the mayor notifying the council.
Councilman Don Gough, who chaired the group that wrote the report, said measures should include putting a cap on the amount paid to the firm in a given year, and requiring more regular reporting of fees by the mayor to the City Council.
The law firm and the work it does are not the issue so much as the contract under which it is working, Hikel said.
“We want to make sure we have a perfectly clean contract,” he said.
McKinnon wrote in a response to the report that a review by the state auditor turned up no wrongdoing on his part and that the council’s audit committee has full access to all records.
The mayor said the council created most of the increase by assigning much more legal work to the firm than previously, which he was legally powerless to stop.
The council assigned the firm to work on issues such as a complaint against fire department officials, firefighter negotiations, location of a methadone clinic in Lynnwood and a major property settlement, McKinnon and city administrator Steve Nolen said.
The council group made numerous recommendations in its report, such as entering all contracts into a city tracking system.
City attorney Greg Rubstello declined to comment on the matter.
Bill Sheets is a reporter for the Herald in Everett.
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