Lewes City Council members spar over their access to attorneys working for the city.
At a meeting last month, attorney Luke Mette, one of several attorneys doing legal work for the city, presented the results of a review he conducted on how much the city was spending on outside legal counsel. That has been a consistent budgetary concern among city officials recently.
Mette’s analysis found in part that too many city officials were contacting outside counsel with questions and requests. He estimated that those requests cost the city nearly $50,000 during the 12 months he looked at, and that having a designated “quarterback” to serve as a conduit between officials and attorneys could save tens of thousands of dollars.
The question of how much direct access city council members and others should have to attorneys was just one part of Mette’s review, but it was the topic of a sometimes-heated discussion at a city council work session on Wednesday.
Councilman Joseph Elder, a regular budget hawk, stressed the impact of out-of-control legal fees on the city’s current spending.
“We're potentially going from $350,000 in legal expenses to date to needing to extend it to potentially $800,000 or more to complete this year,” he said.
Still, Elder said he was opposed to having what he characterized as a “gatekeeper” to route requests from council members to attorneys.
“When we need to access legal service to cross-check each other or something that we are concerned about that affects our constituents, it would be a mistake to stop us from doing that,” Elder said.
Councilman Tim Ritzert contended that the city’s charter protects individual members’ access to attorneys.
“The language that is contained in our charter provides all council members access to all resources of the city - equal access,” he said. “And that includes legal profession.”
Elder also suggested that disagreements among council members are driving some of the need for them to reach out to attorneys.
“Some of the dysfunction that we have in council just as a body right now is driving some of these legal expenses,” he said.
Not all council members opposed routing requests for legal advice through a staff member, however.
“The gatekeeper, in this case the city manager, does have and should have an understanding of what the city priorities are and can tell any one of us, ‘I know you want to talk to [City Solicitor] Alex [Burns] about this, but we're working on this other zoning issue right now and we really need to get that done.’” said Deputy Mayor Khalil Saliba.
Differing opinions led to some testy exchanges, including one between Saliba and Ritzert.
“I'm bristling at the suggestion that I am speaking to counsel with any regularity, okay? I'm not,” Ritzert said.
Mayor Amy Marasco tasked the city manager with drafting a process that might assuage both sides, and asked Elder, who serves as the council’s treasurer, to consider what data he might need to report regularly to the council on legal expenses.
