Tue 19 May 2009
Board of Supervisors revenge on County Attorney: We’ll fire your attorneys and hire our own shadow county attorney’s office
Posted by Chewie Shofir under County Government , Crime and Punishment[11] Comments
Is this for real? The Board of Supervisors, which can’t stop feuding with other county officials (they’ve fought hard with Arpaio, Thomas, former Treasurer David Schweikert, current Treasurer Hos Hoskins, former county schools superintendent Sandra Dowling, forcing her not to run for reelection, the last county assessor, and there’s probably more), has decided to remove $6 million from the County Attorney’s $10 million budget it uses to pay its civil attorneys, forcing the division to go from 71 employees to 28, and hire its own attorneys instead, as a new “shadow county attorney’s office.” Effectively laying off numerous attorneys who have worked for the County Attorney’s Office, some for years! The reason? They are angry that Thomas and Arpaio filed an 118-count indictment against fellow Supervisor Don Stapley for financial misdealings.
The audacity of this power grab is astonishing. They’re now paying a very young inexperienced attorney, Wade Swanson, whose background is education law, $175,000 to run their newly created legal department. Even Andrew Thomas doesn’t make that much money! (He makes $123,678).
Thomas turned over prosecution of Stapley to another office, so if the supervisors claim they need their own legal department because of a conflict of interest, it’s no longer valid.
The County Attorney’s civil division is made up of lawyers who represent the various county agencies. There is no reasonable argument why the Board of Supervisors needs to replace these attorneys who represent the Assessor, the Treasurer, the Sheriff, etc. with their own new attorneys.
The Shadow County Attorney’s Office must go! It looks like the Goldwater Institute is already looking into this power grab, fortunately.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:47 am
The Board of Supervisors has been corrupt for years, it was about time Arpaio and Thomas called one of them out on it. They’re just a bunch of RINOs and one Democrat who never saw a spending program they didn’t like. A lot of the feuding they’re doing with other county officials comes down to money, they want to force other officials to run on skeleton budgets so they can continue spending millions of dollars on their pet left-leaning projects run by their friends (AIDs projects, promoting diversity projects, environmental activism projects, etc). I really hope Arpaio gets somewhere investigating them, but they’ll probably cut his budget too in order to stop him. We need to start a recall of them.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Can’t the other county officials get together and stop the board? If they’ve all had run-ins with them, there must be something they can do. Obviously they’re not going to get anywhere suing them. The Superior Court is in the back pocket of the board, due to the board giving the court the $340 million new expensive court tower. I think the other county officials need to come out with a joint statement against the board.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:58 am
I’ve heard that journalists have been flooding the County Supervisors with public records requests, to get to the bottom of the court tower and excessive spending. That should do the big-spenders in. The public is going to be outraged when they hear how much has been wasted. One of my friends is a reporter and he says the amount of money they have wasted will shock people. I suspect the reason they’re feuding with the other electeds is to deflect attention from THEIR horrendous spending. I love this one – they gave $5000 to a STD clinic to do research on 300 patients! (http://www.maricopa.gov/Clk_Board/Minutes/2007/082207fb.pdf) What business does the county have doling out money to people with STDs?
May 19th, 2009 at 11:57 am
RECALL … RECALL … This is how responsible voters get rid of elected low life’s. County Supervisors, you are all a public disgrace. You are mismanaging your position and you are destroyers of good character.
Voters it’s your money, you better get this RECALL completed quick – it is after all your responsibility – you put the bums in – now throw them out!!
May 19th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Seems to me that the County Supervisors are entitled to hire attorneys to represent THEM.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
If the courts are in the tank for the Supervisors, perhaps it is time the legislature intervenes and holds hearings.
Doesn’t get any clearer than this statute providing the civil legal representation of the county is the responsibility of the County Attorney, not the Supervisors.
COUNTY ATTORNEY
11-532. Powers and duties
A. The county attorney is the public prosecutor of the county and shall:
1. Attend the superior and other courts within the county and conduct, on behalf of the state, all prosecutions for public offenses.
2. Institute proceedings before magistrates for the arrest of persons charged with or reasonably suspected of public offenses when the county attorney has information that the offenses have been committed.
3. When not engaged in criminal proceedings in the superior court, attend upon the magistrates in cases of arrest when required by them, and attend before and give advice to the grand jury.
4. Draw indictments and informations, defend actions brought against the county and prosecute actions to recover recognizances forfeited in courts of record and actions for recovery of debts, fines, penalties and forfeitures accruing to the state or county.
5. Deliver receipts for monies or property received in the county attorney’s official capacity and file duplicate receipts with the clerk of the board.
6. On the first Monday of January, April, July and October in each year, file with the board of supervisors an account, verified by oath, of all monies received in the county attorney’s official capacity during the preceding three months, and at the same time pay it to the county treasurer.
7. When required, give a written opinion to county officers on matters relating to the duties of their offices.
8. Keep a register of official business, and enter therein every action prosecuted, criminal or civil, and of the proceedings therein.
9. Act as the legal advisor to the board of supervisors, attend its meetings and oppose claims against the county which the county attorney deems unjust or illegal.
10. Act as attorney for school districts except as provided in section 15-343, or except in any lawsuits involving a conflict of interest with other county offices at which time the attorney general may represent the school district.
11. Act as attorney for the community college district except as provided in section 15-1448 or except in any lawsuits involving a conflict of interest with other county offices, at which time the attorney general may represent the community college district.
12. Defend all locally valued and assessed property tax appeals as provided in section 42-16208.
B. Upon receipt of an appellant’s brief in a criminal appeal, the county attorney shall furnish the attorney general with a true statement of the facts in the case, together with the available authorities and citations that are responsive to the assignments or specifications of error.
C. The county attorney may represent a school district governing board member against whom an action is brought in the board member’s individual capacity until such time as it is established as a matter of law that the alleged activity or events which form the basis of the complaint were not performed, or not directed to be performed, within the scope or course of the member’s duties.
D. Notwithstanding the provisions of article 12 of this chapter, in connection with the investigation or prosecution of any matter involving the death of a person, the county attorney may request that the medical examiner, for the county in which the prosecution will take place, conduct the medical examination.
(http://www.azleg.state.az.us/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/11/00532.htm&Title=11&DocType=ARS)
May 19th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Great comments! If you only knew the whole story. More will come out Thursday and you will be shocked and outraged. Call your reps and ask them to push SB1467 sponsored by Russell Pearce and other great legislators. Also SB1142 requiring FULL transparency in ALL government transactions. You have a right to know how your money is being spent at all levels of government. The BOS is against both as I recall. Wonder why?
May 20th, 2009 at 6:27 am
Wow.
Must forward. This is just outrageous.
Boot the whole lot of them.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Wow. Bunch of tools for Russell Pearce on board here. Love it. As a True Conservative, and not a phony one like so many others here. I happen to appreciate the fact that Maricopa County is the largest county in the country without ANY debt. Pay as you Go my friends. 4 of the 5 Supervisors refuse to borrow or raise taxes and you weenies criticize them??
Just because they don’t have their noses up the butt of Thomas or Sheriff Joe, or Russell Pearce, who seem to be the 3 Wise Men of Sonoran Alliance, doesn’t make them corrupt or worthy of recall.
Raise your political game here.
And Joe, you should read a newspaper now and then and you would know that the issue is that Thomas is claimed to have advised the Supervisors, and then arrested one of them for following that advice, kind of a conflict of interest wouldn’t you agree??
Thomas’ office will still serve as the Board’s legal advisor, he just isn’t going to get to advise them on issues in which he intends to arrest them. He also isn’t going to represent them on any issue that he has a conflict. Every lawyer, even Thomas, has a duty to disclose conflict and apparently this fact escaped the County Attorney. If even half of what the Board says is true, then it is all going to come out in the wash and we are all going to know what the law and judicial ethics will allow Thomas to do on behalf of the Board in the future.
Why don’t we all wait and see?
June 4th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
[...] criminal justice information from him. The Treasurer sued the Board for stealing his IT employees. Two weeks ago the Board slashed County Attorney Thomas’s Civil Division budget by over 60%, fr…And just yesterday former Superintendent of Schools Sandra Dowling announced she has filed a lawsuit [...]
January 12th, 2010 at 12:32 am
Your blog is so informative … ..I just bookmarked you….keep up the good work!!!!