Council Won’t Contract Out City Legal Work : Government: The majority defends the idea of a public staff and rejects a proposal to study replacing Robert M. Myers with outside counsel.

A week after firing the city attorney, the Santa Monica City Council majority forcefully rejected Tuesday a move by Councilman Herb Katz to study the economics of contracting out for city legal services.

Katz said he wanted the analysis because the city attorney’s budget of $3.5 million a year is “bloated” when measured with those of comparable cities. He also deemed the legal staff “defiant” for its continuing refusal to write ordinances with which they disagree.

Robert M. Myers, a civil rights activist, was dismissed from the post last week for stonewalling council efforts to enact laws he said were designed to run the homeless out of town. Members of his staff, now headed by acting City Atty. Joseph Lawrence, have said they will continue Myers’ policies.

Outside counsel was hired to write the latest law, aimed at regulating large groups in the parks, to avoid morale problems if staffers were asked to go against Myers’ opinion in the days after his firing.

Katz did not agree with that decision, wondering what was accomplished by firing the city attorney if everyone else in his office remained recalcitrant.

“We do not have a staff who is, in my opinion, professional when they refuse to do ordinances,” Katz said.

Katz was supported by Councilman Robert T. Holbrook on the short end of the 5-2 vote. Holbrook said officials from other cities are astounded by the size of the Santa Monica city attorney’s office, which has about 20 lawyers and a support staff of 14.

The five-member council majority, however, offered a spirited defense of the public attorneys and gave Katz a drubbing. He was accused of everything from political posturing to endangering the residents. “You’re playing with people’s lives here,” Councilman Kelly Olsen said. ‘This is not a political issue.”

Councilman Dennis Zane said the city needs its own attorneys because of the broad agenda of the community, which takes an active role in environmental, housing, rent control and consumer affairs litigation.

And he questioned whether Katz was trying to undermine any of these areas by weakening the rigor of its legal defenders. “I do not intend to put this out to a crapshoot,” Zane said. “I think this is a foolish proposal.”

Katz insisted that, given budget constraints, it is reasonable to study the alternatives to see if money could be saved.

It is common for independent cities in Southern California to contract out for legal services. Beverly Hills, for instance, spends $950,000 a year for legal services, almost all of it to a single municipal firm, according to Assistant City Manager Peggy Curran.

This is not an all-inclusive number because it does not account for such separate legal expenses as litigation over the city’s recently constructed civic center.

Culver City, with 39,000 residents, has its own three attorney-staff headed by City Atty. Norman Herring, who said his budget is $566,000. This does not include liability work, which is handled separately, and he could not immediately identify the legal fees.

Herring said Culver City has nowhere near the volume of litigation as Santa Monica. “I don’t know what it is over there,” Herring said. “It’s a magnet city.”

The Culver City attorney said he did not think contracting out would be feasible in Santa Monica because a city needs attorneys at the ready to answer legal questions and provide what he called “preventive maintenance.”

But he also said his council would never go for an office equivalent to Santa Monica’s. “My council would have to be crazy,” he said. “They just wouldn’t agree. We’re a fiscally prudent city.”

In defending the level of service in Santa Monica, Lawrence noted that the city does its own criminal misdemeanor prosecutions--about 10,000 case filings a year--while other cities use the district attorney’s office.

In the past, the district attorney’s services have been free, but Lawrence said they will not be free for Santa Monica. Lawrence said the last city that tried to get the district attorney to take over its criminal cases was informed that the action would be considered a reorganization of government and that the city would have to pay for the services.

Lawrence also noted that the dedication and availability of his staff is not something that could be easily duplicated by hired attorneys. He estimated that the cost will be substantially higher, and harder to control.

“It has been the experience of corporations, as well as cities, that the only way to get a handle on legal expenses is to bring the work in-house,” he said.

Holbrook criticized his council colleagues for their unwillingness to even study the issue. He recalled voting recently to study what he termed a “screwy-sounding” bicycle master plan after Zane convinced him that they were only information-gathering. On the question of the city attorney, however, Holbrook said they were slamming the door.

“Assume, guess, check with a friend,” Holbrook said. “Everyone’s assuming or guessing . . . but are not willing to find out.”