Agenda Packets - 2001/02/05 - Laserfiche WebLink

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M:\MasterFiles\1999 thru 2010\2001\City Council\Work Session Packets\02-05-2001 W. S\Item 04--Legal Services--Kathleen Miller.doc While the dollars expended for legal services suggests the City could hire its own City Attorney, without the contribution of an outside firm the City would be lacking the expertise provided with a firm that employs attorneys who specialize in a variety of issues. Given the complexity of City government staff cautions against this option. Certainly some economics of costs could be derived from the Request for Proposals option, however as mentioned earlier in this report here appears to be only a slight difference in the rates amongst the Cities which were contacted. The City of Mounds View has worked with the firm of Kennedy and Graven for a number of years, there is a value to the historic advantage this provides that is somewhat elusive. Related Issues: Regardless of whom the City ultimately decides to work with, a number of issues have been identified in relation to the costs the City is paying for legal services including: • The lack of any kind of policy related to usage of consultants. • The lack of policy on recovering the costs associated with the provision of legal services for special projects. • The use of two separate attorneys from Kennedy and Graven to attend to legal matters on the City’s behalf. • Unusual litigation. Oftentimes the City Attorney is conferring with several different individuals on staff as they relate to the same issue. While it might be easier for each and every one of us to pick up the phone and get an answer to our question immediately, some effort should be made to orchestrate these discussions using speaker phones, setting up conference calls, or designating an individual to seek the necessary information. The City could and should be recovering all of its costs from developers and applicants who require additional work on the City Attorney’s part. A deposit agreement could be signed by all applicants, alerting them to the costs and binding them to any charges incurred on their behalf. A sliding fee could be established based upon the complexity of the request. For example, a simple ordinance would be nominal while the request for TIF would be much more substantial. Records would be kept and billing could occur with our regular billing cycle. Before any permits are issued the status of the account could be checked and payment made. Using two separate attorneys often meant staff members would speak with both attorneys about the same issue, or they might speak with one attorney who would then speak with the other attorney about the same issue. The result was both time consuming and costly. The final issue is something every City faces and difficult to predict or adequately budget. Litigation is unfortunately a way of doing business in our current society. The City can develop strict policies on making decisions to litigate, and to what extent. Some of the City’s past litigation has seemingly snowballed. At what point does the City Council become involved to review whether to proceed.