"Sending Trutanich to His Corner- Outspoken city attorney gets singled out for big layoffs by irked L.A. City Council " Published on February 05, 2010 at 4:27pm,
By Gene Maddaus, Thursday, Feb 11 2010
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/sending-trutanich-to-his-corner/1
Did you know that there are many in city government who dislike the newly elected city attorney? It's in this story and you will see why. (Interesting that Rocky Delgadillo really had little negative attention drawn his way, and he really deserved to be checked more closely for so many bad acts- not all illegal, but some would rate a charge filing for somebody else doing the same thing.) Now you have a bull in a China shop who's a different sort of City Attorney. I still have a reservation based on the issue of Audit Authority of the Controlller's office and the way the promised cooperation of the City Attorney's office simply evaporated AND Trutanich was never at a loss to manufacture reasons for whatever he did.
All in all, I think City Attorney Trutanich is doing some good. All that farming out of legal work to private attorneys is welcomed by the private bar. But when you have to ship out things that you EXPECT will be part of the regular cases coming to the city like employment law cases from city employees complaints and court filings, it sounds like a stupid thing to do. Keep it in-house and avoid the big bills and expertise will increase- there are harder things to understand than employment law. Their are other areas that have the same need to remain in-house.
Training a few of the hundreds of lawyers IN-HOUSE could have saved them lots- and even a savings by keeping things under control at the negotiation level. Too many cases were going outside and creating mounting legal costs in the millions of dollars. Those law offices would occasionally hire a city attorney from time to time, too. That expertise could theoretically be applied against the city but the ethical requirements in the law would prevent it. Of course it would. When you have big money at stake and lawyers involved- and it's their pay affected- you should not get your hopes up too high, and neither should you expect that any shadiness will ever be detected by outsiders. All around, Trutanich is addressing some of the conditions that make sense.
Here is some background for that 100 person cut that was proposed for the City Attorneys office last week, made an immediate direction to act by Mayor Villaraigosa during his press conference. A Friday legal opinion challenged the authority for the Mayor to do that and Tony's backed off since he's controlled by the City Charter in what amount of authority he posseses. He went overboard here. Some people think that press conference was a staged event by the timing, just one day after the Council officially delayed a decision for 30 days.
The action was, by one newsperson's count, the 3rd time that the Mayor has annouced that severe actions are needed for city workforce members, and the "cry wolf" observation was mentioned. The story refutes the notion raised in council hearings that the City Attorney's office was intentionally targetted. Again, no coincidences, especially in L.A. government.
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