Charter Change for Council to get own attorney

[RecycleMichael]

One of the charter change votes on April 4th is to allow the city council to have their own attorney instead of the city legal department.

This sounds like a terrible idea to me, but one of you attorneys or debaters could still sway my opinion.

Attorneys can disagree on anything from what is legal to what the word "is" is. I can't imagine what would happen if the city attorney and the council attorney start to disagree.

The council has always had the option of hiring outside counsel and in fact has retained outside attorneys for individual matters where certain expertise is needed. There will be at least two attorneys on the new council with Westcott and Eagleton as well.

The city legal department is also comprised of many fine attorneys. The head of that department is the official "city attorney".

I realize that this person and all the attorneys in the legal department report to the Mayor in our strong Mayor form of government and the recent council has fought with the Mayor on some interpretation of the law.

Is that enough reason to allow the city council to have their own City Attorney? Is the last two years of a contentious council reason to change the charter so they can have their own official guy?

At this point, I just see having two official attorneys a fight just waiting to happen.