Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Palmdale Hires Its First City Attorney : City Council: Angil Patricia Jones will get wage and benefits package of nearly $140,000.

For the city of Palmdale, it’s like coming of age.

After more than three decades of contracting with outside firms for legal services, the Palmdale City Council has hired an in-house attorney.

“We’re maturing as a city,” said Councilman Jim Root. “A large firm has been our security blanket.”

In a unanimous vote Thursday, the council approved a three-year contract with Angil Patricia Jones to serve as Palmdale’s city attorney, beginning April 1.

The deal provides Jones with a first-year salary and benefits package of nearly $140,000.

Jones’ salary and benefits are dwarfed by the legal fees Palmdale has been paying to Richards, Watson & Gershon, a Los Angeles-based law firm it has been contracting with for legal services.

Between July 1 and Nov. 30, 1993, the first five months of the 1993-94 fiscal year, Palmdale paid $252,134 for legal services provided by the Los Angeles firm.

At that rate, the city would pay in excess of $600,000 this year to the company, about the same it paid the previous fiscal year.

In the 1991-92 fiscal year, Palmdale paid Richards, Watson & Gershon $1 million, according to city records.

Despite the high attorneys’ fees of the past and Jones’ comparatively smaller salary and benefits package, Palmdale does not expect to save much money--at least not in the short term--just because it has hired a staff attorney.

Jones, city attorney for Turlock since 1989, will need her own staff and the city will still contract with outside attorneys for some work.

“Angil is not going to be out litigating cases,” said Councilman David Myers, who added that contract attorneys also will be used for redevelopment and other specialized matters.

In her first three months, Jones expects to hire an office assistant and a legal secretary and set up a law library.

“I think we’ll probably break even,” Root said. “But we’ll have somebody available to the staff 40 to 60 hours a week, available to the community, available to do seminars for staff.”

There also will be more efficiency, council members said. Department heads will be able to talk to Jones at virtually any time without incurring additional fees.

Eventually, Myers believes, the in-house attorney will save the city money.

The City Council had been considering for two years the possibility of hiring a staff attorney.

Last summer, a formal search was begun, mainly to give the council an opportunity to see who might be interested.

One of the reasons Jones was selected, Myers said, is that she set up the first city attorney’s office in Turlock.

“This is a person of incredibly high energy,” he said of Jones. “She truly has a ‘take no prisoners’ approach to the law . . . The law’s very black and white with her.”

Besides her $98,500 annual salary, Jones will receive $400 per month to compensate for the use of her own car and reimbursement for job-related mileage; 15 vacation days; 12 days of sick leave and 10 days of administrative leave.