Last week in our column "Bits and Pieces" we reported that the town is soliciting for a Town Attorney. This individual would only work at t Town Council meetings. it is a subcontractor position; that is the attorney will not be an employee of the town. To some extent, this position replaces Town Attorney Tobin Rosen, who retired at the beginning of this year. However, the position is much different than Attorney Rosen's position in that it only applies to Council meetings whereas Attorney Rosen's position applied to all matters of counsel.
The change in the position seems to correspond with the change in the Oro Valley legal department. The town's request for bid provides information into changes that are anticipated in your organization of the town's legal department:
"The future of the Department is envisioned as changing to a Legal Services Department wherein the current Interim Town Attorney (Town Prosecutor) would serve as the Department Director and the individual selected through this solicitation process would under contract with and report directly to the Council."This is a reorganization of the department which is currently segmented into two pieces: One piece handles civil matters for Mayor and Council; the other prosecutes misdemeanor crimes atraffic citations.
The subcontracted town attorney will operate independently of the Town Prosecutor. The individual's role is to attend Council meetings. The specific role that the individual is to play at the meetings is not defined in the solicitation. We suspect that it has to do with open meeting law compliance and matters that are directly related to the rules of procedure of the council.
According to the solicitation, the individual may be requested to "provide occasional legal guidance in municipal law as assigned in the areas including but not limited to open meeting law, election law, land-use, economic development negotiations and employment law."
The individual will be contracted for this additional work by both the Town Manager and the Legal Services Director.
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Copy of email sent to Mayor and Council Tuesday, January 29, 2013.
In FY2010/2011 there were two changes to the Town of Oro Valley governmental organization.
• The first change was the formation of a new department called Development & Infrastructure Services (DIS) that merged Building Safety, Planning and Zoning, and Public Works functions.
• The second change was the formation of a new department called Parks, Recreation, Library and Cultural Resources (PRLCR) that merged the Parks & Recreation, Library and Cultural Resources (example: Steam Pump and Naranja Park) functions.
At that time, there were extensive discussions by the Town Council and public interchange on what those reorganizations would do for the Town of Oro Valley.
Now the Town of Oro Valley is contemplating a new reorganization for FY2013/2014. There is a Request for Proposal (RFP) to seek a “part-time” contractor to serve in a “limited capacity” as Town Attorney.
Could it be that the Town could not find any suitable full-time candidate for this position to replace Tobin Rosen who recently retired? It sounds like the Town is using this Request for Proposal as a “fishing expedition” to see if any individual or firm would engage in a “part time” contract.
Excerpts from Request for Proposal for “part-time” attorney.
“The future of the Department is envisioned as changing to a Legal Services Department wherein the current Interim Town Attorney (Town Prosecutor) would serve as the Department Director and the individual selected through this solicitation process would be under contract with and report directly to the Council”.
“The successful individual will serve as the Town Attorney, limited to attendance at meetings with the Town Council, and will report directly to the Town Council”.
“This individual shall not serve as the Town Attorney as listed in the current Town Codes”.
There will be a pre-proposal conference on RFP # 13019 on January 30, 2013 in the Kachina Conference Room at 300PM for preliminary discussions on the viability of this approach. Some questions that might be asked!
Could the individual or firm contractor come up with a conflict of interest on legal matters they are working on privately when they are attending a council meeting and asked for a legal opinion? How would this be handled?
How prepared in-depth can a part-time individual or firm contractor be about Town matters when they limited to attendance at meetings with the Town Council?
Won’t the Town Council have to approve the Legal Department Reorganization before any “part-time” attorney contract can be executed?
Won’t the Town Council have to approve changes to the Town Code before any “part-time” attorney contract can be executed?
John Musolf
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