LIHU‘E — The Office of the County Attorney has requested Kaua‘i County Council authorization to spend nearly $3 million on outside legal counsel since 2007, but the amount of requests for new cases has dipped since County Attorney Al Castillo
LIHU‘E — The Office of the County Attorney has requested Kaua‘i County Council authorization to spend nearly $3 million on outside legal counsel since 2007, but the amount of requests for new cases has dipped since County Attorney Al Castillo took over in March, county documents show.
“It seems to me we’re headed in the right direction,” Castillo said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. “We’re taking on more responsibility in terms of litigation, but it would be nice to have the ability to say ‘we’ll do it ourselves and we don’t need the services of special counsel.’”
The office provided the list earlier this month in response to a request by The Garden Island for government records. The request was made with Castillo during the Aug. 5 council meeting, when two such communications for authorization — which were not mentioned in the document — were approved.
Since Castillo was sworn in, his office has made seven requests totaling $620,000, including the single biggest line item included in the document — a $250,000 request approved by the council May 20 that pertains to a variety of lawsuits involving the Ka Loko Reservoir dam disaster.
But the Ka Loko cases, three requests pertaining to County of Kaua‘i vs. Patricia and Michael Sheehan, and one involving the 1000 Friends of Kaua‘i vs. a pair of Eastside resort developments are repeat items that had previous special counsel authorizations before Castillo’s tenure.
“Since I’ve been here, the only one that is mine is the Sueoka case, and that’s one where we really didn’t have a choice,” Castillo said, in reference to an equal employment opportunity claim filed against the county by former Deputy County Attorney Margaret Sueoka. He said having a staff attorney handle the case could constitute a conflict of interest.
“The hard part is that there are day-to-day operations and then you have these cases, and I wish we had more bodies here so that we could actually have a litigation unit, but that does cost money,” Castillo said, noting that some other islands’ county attorneys have such units. “In these dire financial times, what can we do but do our best?”
However, after considering the expense of paying contracted attorneys an hourly rate of between $185 and $350, depending on the case and its level of complexity, according to Castillo, it could end up being more cost-effective to hire more full-time attorneys rather than authorizing special counsel expenditures.
“I’m not an accountant, I’m not a fiscal man, but this is a lot of money,” Castillo said.
In the Fiscal Year 2010 budget passed earlier this year, the Office of the County Attorney’s projected in-house expenditures of more than $1 million covered the annual salaries of Castillo, eight deputy county attorneys and six clerks, but did not take into account the additional contracted legal help.
Requests made by the Office of the County Attorney are not guaranteed to be approved by the council, and even if they are, the approved amount is merely a ceiling for expenditures; if less than the authorized amount is spent, the remainder would remain under county control.
Of the 45 requests for outside help made since January 2007, at least seven appear to pertain to Ka Loko. After the dam failed in March 2006, landowner James Pflueger was sued, along with the County of Kaua‘i and State of Hawai‘i, for property damage and wrongful death claims.
Court documents recently revealed a settlement was imminent in those cases, but terms of the deal have not been released and it remains unclear how much taxpayer money will be compromised.
The seven requests since January 2007 pertaining to Ka Loko total $900,000, a number that, like other authorizations, does not and will not cover settlements or jury awards, Castillo confirmed.
In 2007, 13 requests totaled $831,000. In 2008, 21 requests totaled $1.22 million, and through the first eight-plus months of 2009, the Office of the County Attorney has made 11 requests totaling $895,000 for outside legal counsel.
To view the special counsel request list and other public government documents obtained by The Garden Island, visit www.kauaiworld.com/sunshine.
