The assembly has contracted with a law firm in Anchorage to provide some legal services as it continues to search for a new municipal attorney.
Municipal attorney Brian Hanson is retiring at the end of the month. Two people have interviewed for the job so far, but the finalist from Fairbanks pulled out of the running. No one has applied since then. When the assembly met on Wednesday (6-12-24), it discussed how it would contend with a gap in legal support while it ramps up recruiting efforts.
City Administrator John Leach said the municipal attorney’s work can be divided into three categories.
“One of them is litigation. Another one is legislation, code [and] ordinance resolution sort of work, and then the third is the day to day,” Leach said. “The day to day can be the kind of the overwhelming stuff– we’re dealing with lease compliance, we’re dealing with collections, insurance claims, contract reviews, procurements.”
Leach said attorney Michael Gatti with Jermain, Dunnagan, and Owens (JDO) in Anchorage had committed to providing legal services for the city at whatever level the city needs. Leach suggested legal questions from city staff that typically would go directly to the municipal attorney could be routed through him and Hanson’s legal assistant, and they could determine if outside counsel was necessary.
Several assembly members voiced concerns about adding more work to Leach and other city staff’s plates. And Assembly Member Tim Pike suggested hiring an assistant to help, and worried that the plan could discourage staff from asking legal questions.
“I don’t want to ice legal services throughout the city,” Pike said. “This is why we hired an attorney,” he added. “I mean, otherwise, we are going to get ourselves in trouble.”
The plan to contract outside legal help is a stop-gap. Leach said they’d recently tasked a recruiter with finding applicants for the attorney job, and hoped they would see more applications soon.
Nevertheless, assembly member Chris Ystad wondered what it might cost if the city had to contract out legal services for months. Leach said that depends on how many legal issues the city is facing.
“We can go years with with not a lot of them, and then some years, we get a ton of them,” Leach said. “It’s just going to take keen budget management on our part, to keep an eye on what’s available, and if we start bumping up against that limit…if this does go on for six months or longer, there’s a very high possibility that we’ll come back to the assembly for some more funding to cover that.”
Ultimately the assembly decided to see how the plan goes for a month, as they wait for applications to roll in.
