Bainbridge Island may add another legal eagle to its nest at city hall.
The city council is expected to authorize the hiring of a deputy city attorney during its meeting next week.
City Manager Doug Schulze said the additional lawyer on staff will help save the city money over the long run.
The extra attorney will also help with a backlog of work that’s been piling up for years, he said.
Schulze briefed council members about the plan at their meeting last week.
He said the city examined how it was spending money on legal advice, and City Attorney Joe Levan has suggested adding a full-time deputy city attorney to the city’s legal division.
“We’ve looked at the history of the position and history of the cost,” Schulze told the council.
“We’re seeing legal costs decline. There’s a correlation between outside legal counsel costs and litigation costs,” Schulze continued, and that’s because an in-house city attorney is available to do ground work on issues in advance.
Legal staff at city hall can work with city employees to help avoid problems or head them off before they happen, he said.
Levan has done just that in his time with the city.
“The result we’re seeing is very positive,” Schulze said.
Though he praised the work of the city attorney, Schulze added that Levan can’t keep and with the amount of work and “the work load is significant.”
“We’re not getting to some things that we need to deal with; legacy issues that have been kicked down the road for a decade or more related to our code, updates to different ordinances,” Schulze said. “Those things have to be addressed.”
Some of those “legacy work items” were spelled out in an earlier memo to the council. They include revisions to the city’s municipal code, some stemming from “complaints and frustrations” by community residents, elected officials and city staff. That batch of unresolved issues include changes to code enforcement regulations and procedures, contracts, zoning and land-use issues, and the city’s internal policies.
The city’s legal costs hit a peak in 2014, the same year the city was hit with a lawsuit after it refused to release council members’ emails sought under a request made under the state Public Records Act.
Legal advice and litigation expenses rose from $405,545 in 2013 to $490,713 in 2014.
Similar costs ebbed to $331,649 in 2015 before rising to $404,599 in 2016. This year, through June, the city has spent $177,820 on legal advice and litigation expenses.
For non-staff legal counsel, costs have ranged from $400,494 in 2013 to a high of $412,083 in 2014. Those expenses dropped to $146,083 in 2015 to $241,256 last year.
So far this year, the city has spent $69,414 on outside legal services.
Non-staff legal expenses were high last year, officials said, because an outside attorney was hired to replace Lisa Marshall after she left her job as city attorney until the time Levan was hired and joined city staff last September.
Bainbridge currently has a temporary, part-time assistant city attorney.
Once that job becomes full time, the new deputy city attorney is expected to devote time to reviewing contracts, legal research, property transfers and transactions, and other matters.
The deputy attorney would also work on needed changes to the city’s municipal code, review the city’s code enforcement regulations, and assist with public records requests. The on-staff lawyer would work to bring the city’s updated comprehensive plan in line with development regulations, and would also provide advice to the
Though some on the council expressed initial concerns about creating a deputy city attorney position, it received an unanimous nod from elected officials during its rollout last week.
“It certainly makes sense to me,” said Councilman Mike Scott.
“I fully support this,” added Councilman Kol Medina, who said added legal attention to comp plan issues was welcome.
The proposal will come back to the council for a final vote on July 11.
