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Home My WebLink About04-12-2001 Meeting I I I LAW STUDY SUBCOMMITTEE COMMITTEE ROOM- Aplil12, 2001 11 :00 A.M. PRESENT: B. Young, Mayor, L. Beard, Chairman, M. Williams, S. Shepard, members, J. Wall, Attorney, V. Flournoy, Staff Attorney, B. Pelaez, HR Director, L. Bonner, Clerk of Commission. MEDIA: S. Eidson, Metro Spirit, G. Eskola, Channel 6. . ...P~ft.!!~Jh.ex~l~ ~nd r~~po!lsi~mtie~ o.HI!e.J;~iry At!orney. Mr. Beard: The Mayor and Commission are clients of the Attorney and he is our representative in the legal aspect of this government. As far as contracts and other legal advice that he will propose to the Mayor and Commission. I know in the past that any employee in the past, and I think this is why tIus has come about, was able to pick up the phone and call. And I think that some of the Commissioners felt that this was frivolous and that the call could've been directed to the department head. The question is how far should we extend this, should we extend this to the department heads and stop there, should they take responsibility or should we open it up to anybody who has a legal question? Mr. Wall: I would like to clarify something. I don't think it is or has it ever been opened up to twenty-five hundred employees. Each department director or section or division director because, Risk Management for example is not a department, it works under a (inaudible) but yet the individuals in Risk Management would call regarding advice for a particular claim etc. Likewise, then Public Works and Utilities Dept, tIle ones who might be heading up a specific area might call or someone who might be in the field and encounter a particular situation might call. I think in each of those situations however, or the majority of those situations the individual has reported to his superior the situation and it had been suggested or recommended that they contact my office or someone in my office for advice on how to deal with tlus particular situation. I think to impose a blanket rule that any request for services has to come from a department director is going to slow up and make the government a bigger bureaucracy than it already is or needs to be. I don't think that anyone has abused the right to call my office. I would disagree tIlat any of the calls to my office have been frivolous. Yes, there may have been some situations that perhaps I thought a department should make, but generally in those situations its the department head that I'm being told is tIle one who requested that employee to make a call to me. Some departments call more frequently than others do. I think you'll always have that situation depending upon the department director and how much responsibility that individual wants to take on. But I would discourage the Committee regardless of who is performing legal services to adopt a blanket rule that every call has to receive permission from the department head. I think that should be left up to each department head to send instructions down through their chain of command as to who is and who is not authorized to allow an individual to call for legal advice and what approval mechanism should be in place before they call. I think each depmiment should make that decision rather than the Commission making that decision. Mr. Beard: I t1unk in your reference that the department head and not the Commission should make that decision you have point. I think that maybe they should along with the Administrator sit down and decide that. I do think that tlus is an issue, after it was brought to our attention that needs to be worked on. I do think that we have used you in a lot of instances more t11an we should have. I Mr. Williams: I am in agreement with what you've just said. It may be unfair in .m. ._. sOll1ein.sta.JJ,ces. I think We.d()neecl.~Qmenguidelin.e~_(j.~.to who l1laYQQptact the attorney even as Commissioners and department heads. If we don't have guidelines on that, it's open game meaning that if we don't think about what we have here. If we have people in the department, people that work under department the heads that are allowed to call the attorney at his rate of pay and the way things are going, I don't think there's any way to control it. I think we need some guidelines as to who refers to the Attorney. When we don't have those guidelines, when we don't know if it's a department head or assistant head calling, when there is a problem that could have been discussed in the department or the Administrator could've handled. We need to curtail that. I had the records pulled and I think the last time we checked on the records for the Attorney it was like $24,000 in one month that we paid in phone conversations and other work that you've done. If we don't think about our end of it then I think we have the wrong attorney that would say don't call me because I'm billing the city too much. That's sometlllng that he's not going to do. I'm saying that we have too many people callingl1im asking for something that could have been handled in a different way. You talk about Risk Management, if there is a legal situation that we need some legal advice on in a lawsuit or an accident, I think those people should have the right to call. You all talk about micro managing, if we're going to do tIus then let's do the whole tIung. Ifwe're going to micro manage in one department, lets do it in every department, if we're not going to do it in all departments, then lets not do it in any. I think we need to look at what we're doing. I Mr. Shepard: I think we should let the professionals we've hired Jim as t1le chief legal officer and Vmlessa do their jobs. They're not coming to us complaining that there is too much phone access calls, if there is we can deal with it. I really think our actions today would be premature for several reasons: (1) the absence ofthe request ofthese two professionals to get direction. (2) Would be that we're going to have a new city administrator coming on board and we're also having a general counsel come on board this year. I think once that general counsel is here, perhaps at that point, based on the experience that Jim and Vanessa have had together, the new person coming in, if we're going to have some direction give it then. But I think what I'd be most interested in finding out would be is what Ms. Pelaez has to say when we're going to get our general counsel. I think we're interested in results and competent legal representation. I think we have a very experienced senior city attorney and we should either defer to Ius professional judgment or replace him. Right now we have several things that are going to happen. I don't think we can be crafting rules in the absence of our new manager and our new general counsel. I I After a detailed discussion, Mr. Beard: We do need some guidelines. I think that what this Committee should do at this time is let the Administrator, department heads and the legal people work out a system which would be advantageous to everybody. Mr. Williams: I'd like to make a motion that the new Administrator meet with the Attorney to establish guidelines and report back to this Committee. Mr. Shepard: Second. Motion carried unanimously. Update from the Director of Human Resources .regarding the advertising process for the General Counsel. Ms. Pelaez: At the end of November the Commission adopted the Law Study Subcommittees recommendation to go out for General Counsel. We advertised for one month in the Augusta Chronicle and the Atlanta Journal. We had no time to advertise in professional journals because we only had thirty days. When the position closed we had only received four applications. The applicmlts did not have t1le experience, from my opinion only that we were looking for in the area of primary counsel. At this point I think we should re-advertise in professional journals and possibly get more applicants. I Mr. Shepard: I think Ms. Pelaez should advertise in professional journals in state law journals, Fulton County Daily Report, American Bar Association Magazine and through GMA and ACCG. I would like to make a motion that we to instruct our Human Resources Director to restart the process and advertise in the professional journals that we have mentioned for the position of General Counsel and report back to the Commission on July 1. Mr. Young: Second. lVlotion carried unanimously. ADJOURNMENT: Wit1l no further business to discuss the meeting was adjourned. Lena 1. Bonner Clerk of Conunission /bb I