Manistee's Steep Unexplained Legal Fees

[XLFD]

At the January, 27th Ludington City Council meeting the council will decide on the issue of whether to retain their current attorney services with Grand Rapids'/Manistee's Mika Meyers law firm or an attorney co-op featuring Ludington's Alvarado Law firm and a Traverse City based attorney.

The City's usual attorney representative, Richard Wilson, has came under some fire from the council this year for some legal gaffes and alleged rudeness during and after a special September meeting discussing marijuana dispensaries.

Nevertheless, it has been roughly twelve years since city attorney services has undergone competitive bidding, and it seems to have motivated Wilson and Mika Meyers to offer their legal counseling at discounted rates. Rather than charge a monthly retainer of $5000, they have cut their proposed rate to $4500 and suggested periodic reviews to keep them honest (at least as honest as an attorney can be).

The Ludington Torch has pointed out several of the firm's shortcomings over the years; for those paying attention, the recent year has probably been one of their better years in overall service, and that can be attributed to the change of direction of city efforts following the change of city manager and impending retirement of the police chief. The mistakes made this year have been similar to the mistakes in the past, but Wilson doesn't have the same support-at-any-cost system in place.

A diverse City staff seems willing to change legal horse's unanimously, a diverse city council also appears to be amenable to the better value and potentially better quality that the other firms present, but if they are wavering here is something additional to consider from the city to the north that Wilson hails from: Manistee.

Manistee is a little over 3/4 the size of Ludington and about five times the size of Scottville as regards population in the city limits. Proportionally, if we compare legal costs with Mason County's cities, one might expect them to pay 3/4 of Ludington annual costs of $90,000 (aggregate cost), or around $67,500, or five times Scottville's annual fees of around $11,000, or $55,000. Let's grant them the range of $50,000 to $70,000. Here is one page of the City's 2019-2020 budget:

Unlike Ludington who hire two additional agents to handle FOIA requests and criminal prosecutions, Mika Meyers generally catch all of the legal expenses for the City. Another page of the budget shows their costs for the prior year 2018/2019 (their budget becomes effective in springtime). You will find the projected expenses for attorney fees for this last year is rather steep: $55K + $70K + $18K + 3K = $146,000.

The original projection of the budget of nearly $100,000 was considerably higher than our own range projections based on Ludington and Scottville attorney fees, but the $146,000 figure comes from a much more than expected attorney labor fee of $70K rather than the expected $15K. Where did that $55,000 unexpected number come from?

After some research, we found that the City of Manistee underwent arbitration with its police unions, which could explain some unexpected costs. Yet arbitration generally is a fairly informal process that doesn't normally take a lot of attorney costs, the research also shown that whereas Mika Meyers touts their labor attorneys have the depth and expertise to handle virtually any labor and employment related matter, they opted out and had outside legal counsel bill the City of Manistee.

And they did-- at nearly five times the amount the City budgeted despite the budget-drafters' understanding that the twelve members of their police unions required a new labor contract this year and they budget the same amount of $15,000- $20,000 for future years including 2019/2020, when the 23 City-employed members of the United Steelworkers Union are due for a new contract.

There is absolutely nothing in the City of Manistee's records, releases or the news that suggest why labor attorney expenses shot through the roof and why their total legal expenditures are two to three times higher than one would expect when looking at Mason County's numbers. Nothing, unless you consider corrupt management and/or legal services.

[Willy]

The history of Manistee's legal expenses closely resemble the history of Ludington's water tower fiasco. I guess money has to be skimmed from somewhere. It all depends on where the fat can be created then diverted. I wonder if there is any town in Michigan that doesn't have at least the appearance of corruption.