The contract states "Fee arrangements for additional projects will be negotiated and agreed upon by WBBB and the mayor, and approved by council."
According to research of Tony Benedetti, it has been five years since council has been asked to approve the additional work.
At monday's council meeting, Tony made this statement: "council needs to be involved and decide when the law director should be involved. The law director and mayor should say 'we have this issue, do you want to spend some of that $10,000 on this?'"
That's not the way it's done currently. The law director does what she feels is necessary, without the input of council. She does keep them apprised of the activities, but there is no longer any input on council before the hours (money) are spent.
Again, Tony provides that last year $25,000 was spent by the law director, beyond the original contract amount, and it wasn't approved by council- funds were appropriated but none of the activities were approved. There is a difference in appropriating the money and having a particular activity approved to subtract from the funds appropriated. This is another example where council has been taken out of the involvement. If the law director says something is not routine work, it comes from the appropriated funds beyond the contract amount.
In response to this, Jennifer Croghan made the following statement at the July 8 council meeting: "we would say that when you appropriate the funds for the x amount, that's when it is approved." and "when the mayor gets a lawsuit in the door we cant sit around and wait until next month to get together."
The contract also states provisions for "complex litigation," including such things as attendance at hearing before a judge and/or a jury, and appeals. The rates for complex litigation "shall be pre-approved by the Mayor prior to WBBB [law firm] commencing work on any individual matter. The fee arrangement set for the below in "additional projects" shall also apply to "complex litigation."
In other words, ..."and approved by council" applies to complex litigation.
Thus far in 2013, $11,686.64 has been billed to Minerva Park from the law director, beyond the contract amount, for six matters (five separate cases, one was appealed).
I'm uploading the previous contract as best I can do right now, in case you'd like to see what the text says yourself. Most browsers will support clicking on the image to make it large enough to read. Press the "back" button to return to the blog when finished.
These are the expenses beyond contract amounts to date
Something does not sound right about this. Appropriating funds is not the same as approving the spending of funds or the same as approving something as specified in a contract. Is approving funds on a regular basis for lawsuits the norm for small villages?
ReplyDeleteYes in Minerva Park! Look into the past and all the lawsuits this Mayor Eisentrout has gotten the tax payers to pay for!
ReplyDeleteMost of these lawsuits were filed by the attorney for a former cop, who was found by an independent court in Franklin County to have been terminated rightfully. The fraternal order of police has filed these lawsuits on his behalf to simply dig for money. If council would have just done it right the first time and uphold the termination of that certain cop, most of this wouldn't have happened!
ReplyDeleteWith regards to what "Anonymous July 27, 2013 at 6:20:00 PM EDT" posted.
DeleteI have doubts the "fraternal order of police has filed these lawsuits on his behalf to simply dig for money" for a former cop. It is also my understanding that council did not uphold the termination of that certain cop due to something about it not being done right by the mayor or the punishment by the mayor not being the applicable for the infraction.
I would be willing to guess this person has a rose colored view or tunnel vision as to how some things have been done, and might not be aware of some things. For example, the current police chief was never cleared of charges when fired as Sandusky's Police Chief as reported by some, and as as lead to be believed by the Villager. The civil service commission there chose to ignore the hearing officer's and former judge's recommendation to uphold the firing, and instead reinstated. Since then our current police chief's firing was upheld by every court with the last being an Ohio court of appeals. Maybe also unknown by the mayor and council is it was reported by the Sandusky Register that the spouse of the police chief (and the current maintenance person in the village) "was previously charged with domestic violence and child endangerment in 2000 and 2001 in Wilmington, Ohio, according to Hamilton County Clerk of Courts records." What the mayor and council is maybe now aware of due to citizen comments at a meeting is it seems our police chief is seeking employment elsewhere.
That is what she likes to tell everyone! Or her classic
ReplyDeleteI don't recall. Please do some research and find out the real truth.
The person commenting about the lawsuits is confused.Franklin County ruled that the process that they fired the cop by was done correctly,the issue as to whether he was rightfully terminated is still pending.
ReplyDeleteThe firing of Officer Gross is one of many issues our Law Director has had to deal with. The lawsuits started in 2009 when the Clerk of Courts sued the Mayor and Village for " AGE DISCRIMINATION AND INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS " this case was settled out of court in the Clerks favor.
The next thing was trying to convince Chief Hillard to retire. This was all done in executive sessions so I don't have all the details. The thing I do know is that Chief Hillard wasn't ready to retire and the Law Director had about $ 2,000 in extra work in Chief Hillard case.
Officer Silverman had to sue the Village over a Workers Compensation claim, again this was discussed behind closed doors. The Village settled with Officer Silverman and the Law Director billed $ 1,164.30
The firing of Officer Gross is by far the biggest part of the extra work the Law Director has billed for in the past. To make a long story short he was fired for not following the procedures for pulling over a drunk driver who was driving on the wrong side of 161, and the way in which he arrested a drunk driver who had run over a fire hydrant on Cleveland Ave. The Village tried to fire him before these two events for pulling over suspected drunk drivers on Cleveland Ave.
Officer Gross's story is a long one. It's a story I have been following from the beginning. Officer Gross along with several other Officers who are no longer with the MP Police Dept. went to the Fraternal Order of Police to register a complaint against the Mayor. This is when the Mayor decided she needed to clean up our Police Dept. Since then she got Chief Hillard to retire and hire a new Police Chief who was fired from her last job for being dishonest. And the two of them have run off most of our experienced Police Officers.
What the Mayor and the Police Chief have done to our Police Dept has been very expensive and has given the Village a bad reputation among other police organizations. Specifically the Village hired a Police Chief who was fired for be dishonest and fired a Police Officer who was just trying to do his job. I'm not the only one who thinks this is backwards am I???