Council authorizes up to $650,000 for fees to fight
perchlorate
Slav Kandyba – Staff Writer
sk******@**********rs.com
MORGAN HILL
No lawsuits have been filed during the three years the city has retained a Santa Barbara law firm to represent it on perchlorate cleanup matters. Still, the law firm of Hatch and Parent has billed the city more than $500,000 since 2004, according to Morgan Hill City Attorney Janet Kern.
And the billing continues to rise. The city council Nov. 28 unanimously approved amending the contract with Hatch and Parent to authorize spending up to an additional $75,000 through June 2008. With the city having paid out more than half a million so far, the allocation means Hatch and Parent can bill the city up to $650,000 more through that time period, Kern said. The funds come from the city’s water operations fund, Kern wrote in a report.
City officials say hiring a skilled outside attorney was required to represent city interests before other agencies, and potentially, in court. City Manager Ed Tewes said the perchlorate cleanup was a “highly legalistic and adversarial process” that required hiring “lawyers skilled in water law.” Councilman Mark Grzan said the city has considered filing a lawsuit in the past and needed an expert.
Citing attorney-client privilege, Kern declined to comment about the city’s legal strategy.
Hatch and Parent lawyers prepared a 28-page response to a draft of the cleanup order that outlines how Olin Corp., the road flare manufacturer responsible for the perchlorate plume in the groundwater below Morgan Hill, is to proceed with cleanup. The response was longer than responses and comments from other stakeholders, including the city of Gilroy, whose administrator Jay Baksa submitted a two-page letter. He wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Although Kern joined the city after the Hatch and Parent contract was signed in September 2004, she said the work its lawyers have done couldn’t be done in-house. As a “generalist” who deals with everyday legal city matters, she has neither time nor expertise in water law, she said.
