by: Â Diane Benjamin
See this previous post: Â http://blnnews.com/2014/03/18/why-does-bloomington-have-a-legal-staff/
I requested detailed information on the legal bills involved, but the City denied my request:
The citizens of Bloomington will never know how much the City spent for a six and half page response from this law firm concerning allegations Mayor Renner called “totally ridiculous”. Â See this post: Â http://blnnews.com/2013/12/20/mayor-formerly-transparent-renner-sinks-himself/
But the news gets even worse. Â The City of Bloomington has paid legal staff, so why are they hiring a law firm in Rosemont and how much have they been paying them? Â Former City Attorney Todd Greenburg was paid, according to openthebooks.com, $171,399 in 2013. Â That includes the amount he was paid to leave, even though the City had no legal reason to pay him, he wasn’t working with a contract. Â The previous year he was paid $110,285.
Looks like a good place to cut expenses, or maybe the City just needs to outsource all their legal work since the legal department must not be capable.
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I’d like to add my comments to this and send it to the City Council but I really should ask your permission first. Sorry for not doing it the 1st time.
They are probably going to claim that the law department doesn’t litigate court cases, but they should say that rather than a basic it’s non none of your business but it’s attorney client privileged. Maybe I’ve got it wrong, but that’s our money and they work for us.
You don’t need my permission to send them anything! I do know that the David Bentley TIF lawsuit was taken over by these guys when Greenburg left. I have no idea what else they were involved with.
A local government such as what we have will employ a “yes” man. Real lawyers will be required when the yes men are too inexperienced to play in the bigger game.
It appears from Pantagraph articles when Greenburg left and these guys took over the TIF case, suddenly they talked settling the case. (years after it began)