In Incinerator Rift : Wolfsheimer Urges Outside Legal Help

San Diego City Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, saying the city attorney’s office lacks the expertise to contest a federal court decision allowing the start-up of an experimental hazardous-waste incinerator in La Jolla, urged her colleagues Tuesday to hire private attorneys to handle a possible appeal.

Wolfsheimer, who is a frequent critic of City Atty. John Witt and considered challenging him at the polls this year, made her recommendation during a closed review of the incinerator and later discussed it in an interview.

“I just don’t think they (the city attorney’s staff) have the expertise to handle matters of incineration of any kind,” Wolfsheimer said. “This is high-tech stuff the average city attorney couldn’t be expected to have a handle on.”

No Decision on Appeal

The council made no decision Tuesday about whether to appeal U.S. District Judge Judith Keep’s ruling Monday, which cleared the way for Ogden Environmental Services to begin test burns of hazardous waste at a Torrey Pines Mesa research park within the next few months.

Assistant City Atty. Curtis Fitzpatrick said the council will wait for a written transcript of Keep’s oral ruling before deciding, probably at a July 5 closed session, whether to appeal. The council has 30 days after getting the ruling to take the case to the 9th District Court of Appeals.

Fitzpatrick said the city attorney’s office has no comment on Wolfsheimer’s recommendation.

Keep was sharply critical of some of the council’s actions in the Ogden case, ruling that the city exceeded its authority to regulate the incinerator, thereby effectively banning it.

Wolfsheimer, who said Monday that the council’s decisions came at Witt’s advice, added Tuesday that an appeal using private counsel would be the city’s best chance to stop Ogden’s plans.

‘Do Something Dramatic’

“As we know, Judge Keep was angry at the city of San Diego, and perhaps that’s a clue to spur us on to hiring outside counsel and do something dramatic for the city,” said Wolfsheimer, whose council district includes La Jolla.

Wolfsheimer, a frequent critic of the hiring of private attorneys by the city, said she has “not necessarily lost confidence” in the city attorney’s ability to litigate the issue, but she said outside specialists would “know how to create the paper trails and the witness trails that would be most conducive to a win.”

“We should know when outside counsel is necessary,” she said. “I believe this is one of those instances.”

Asked why she had not made that recommendation earlier in the city’s six-month legal battle with Ogden, Wolfsheimer said it previously appeared that the city’s attorneys could win the case.