It’s a good thing erstwhile fire chief-turned-alderman Frank Edwards didn’t pull his usual shtick and get all persnickity about city regs last Tuesday night, because the horde jammed into the City Council chambers definitely exceeded the fire code. Ernie Slottag, the city’s director of communications, says it was the biggest crowd he remembers seeing at a council meeting in the past eight years.
All the seats were filled, all the standing room was taken, and another swarm
waited in the hallway.
Fortunately, the crowd divided into two separate audiences:
A couple hundred were there–babies balanced on laps–to make sure the council
passed an ordinance updating the city’s home daycare provisions. Since that
ordinance was a zoning matter, it appeared on the first part of the agenda.
It passed, and that crowd left happy.
Moving in to take their seats were scores of Springfield police officers,
some in uniform, many with their spouses and children, all there to see the
council confirm Don Kliment as the new police chief. Despite doubts expressed
earlier in the week by Ward 4 Alderman Chuck Redpath–who wanted to make sure
Kliment would “streamline a fat department” by eliminating all but three of
the assistant chief positions–the measure passed unanimously and without discussion.
During a prolonged standing ovation from both the audience and the council,
Mayor Tim Davlin rotated the speaker’s podium, indicating he wanted Kliment
to make some remarks. Soft-spoken by nature, Kliment was rendered almost inaudible
by the emotion of the moment. “I am overwhelmed,” he said.
But not all the excitement happened in front of the audience. Between the
zoning agenda and regular business, the council disappeared into executive session
to discuss what Davlin called “the current lawsuit.”
It doesn’t require rocket science to figure he meant the race discrimination
case filed by some black current and former police officers. And with the recent
news that these officers had made a settlement offer, it doesn’t take a crystal
ball to divine what the alderman discussed. The fact that they were in and out
of their private conference room in less than half an hour–counting chit-chat
and potty breaks–doesn’t bode well for settlement.
Any lingering doubt? Check out how the city is handling the “request for production”
submitted July 9 by the black officers’ lawyer. Eighty items long and designed
to leave no pebble unturned, it has been parceled out to various employees to
start pulling files. The lawyer, Courtney Cox, shrugs off this news: “I am not
surprised and it really doesn’t bother me. We intend to vigorously pursue this
case.”
Feeling feisty, some council members ended the meeting by setting themselves
up for another lawsuit. Edwards–the one so persnickety about city codes–initiated
a discussion of the $131,184.43 bill owed to Husch & Eppenberger, the Peoria
law firm former Mayor Karen Hasara hired to investigate the black officers’
complaints. This bill comes on top of the $47,573.59 the city paid the firm
on March 14. Husch & Eppenberger’s lead attorney on the investigation has
told the State Journal-Register that his firm is willing to negotiate.
Alderman Edwards, however, isn’t. Retired from the fire department, he’s spending
his summer building sets for the Muni and reading statutes at City Hall, and
he believes the city doesn’t have to pay.
“We passed an ordinance that said [the contract with Husch & Eppenberger
was] not to exceed $50,000, and we’re pretty much backed up by state statute,”
Edwards told his colleagues. He suggested they pay nothing past $50,000 “until
somebody in a black robe tells us otherwise.”
Unlike Husch & Eppenberger, Edwards dispenses his advice for free. “I’m
not a lawyer,” he admits, “but I can read.”
At your expense
When former mayor Karen Hasara hired Husch & Eppenberger
on November 13, 2002, she stated the investigation would last about three weeks
and cost less than $15,000.
Twelve days later, on November 25, 2002, Husch & Eppenberger’s
bill had reached $15,133.50.
That same day, the firm’s attorneys held meetings with
Hasara, then-police chief John Harris, and his department’s legal advisor Bill
Workman, as well as the State Journal-Register. Two attorneys’ work in
Springfield that day cost the city $3,709.50.
When the attorneys actually conducted interviews with
“witnesses” (not named in the firm’s itemized billing statements), the costs
per day were higher. For example, the bill for two attorney’s work and travel
on January 27 and 28, 2003, totals $14,017.
On February 4, 2003, Husch & Eppenberger’s lead attorney
Chris Nichols attended a City Council meeting at which the council voted to
pay the firm $50,000. Nichols’ bill for attending that meeting: $140. Earlier
that day, he had traveled to Springfield, reviewed information and computer
data, performed “report analysis,” and prepared for city council meeting, all
at a cost of $1,520.
Travel expenses for the Peoria firm’s lawyers during the
investigation amount to at least $3,600.
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2003.
