Published: October 23, 2007 01:13 am            

SOMERSET: Town attorney sees no need for legal audit

Town Attorney Edwin J. Shoemaker said Monday he sees no reason why the state comptroller’s office should care to audit the town’s legal spending.

Shoemaker responded in writing to Supervisor Richard J. Meyers’ release, last week, of a letter he sent to Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli asking for an investigation and audit of the town’s legal expenses since January 2005.

In 21?2 years, Meyers wrote, the town board has signed off on roughly $1.36 million in legal spending — more than $800,000 of that to Shoemaker — without allowing some scrutiny of the bills or examination of whether the town could be better served by seeking other counsel or different terms with Shoemaker.

“The payments being made to the town attorney represent a significant portion of the entire (town) budget. (They) must be brought to the full light of day,” Meyers wrote to DiNapoli.

Meyers’ claims are “old news” and “factually incorrect,” Shoemaker responded in a written release to media.

All attorney-fee vouchers submitted to the town since Meyers took office were audited and approved by the board including Meyers, and prior years’ billings already were audited by the state and no problems were found, he wrote.

“The fees represent the services of my office as well as outside counsel to address the issues of the AES landfill, the AES assessment and the AES PILOT agreement. ... This is old news. The same claim was made and published by the US&J a year ago,” Shoemaker wrote.

Also, he pointed out, legal bills previously were made public under Freedom of Information Law.

Meyers said last week he’s been trying to get a good read on the town’s legal bills for over a year and has run into roadblocks repeatedly. As supervisor, he requested a look at all the bills for 2005 and 2006 and was refused. Town Clerk Rebecca Connolly told him in writing that he as an individual does not have the right because the town board as a whole is the lawyers’ client and enjoys attorney/client privilege.

Meyers said he tried the FOIL route as an everyday citizen before he was elected. He claimed the documents he received in response were rendered useless because about 80 percent of the content was blacked out.

Since January, Meyers said, the town board has resisted his multiple attempts to shake up the legal status quo. The board ignored his proposal to put legal services out to competitive bid and rejected a motion to negotiate more stringent billing terms with Shoemaker.

Shoemaker said because the lawsuits he’s been involved with are ongoing, he would not comment any further on Meyers’ letter.

        

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