Hey, county commissioners: You've already spent about $72,000 to defend a rather indefensible position -- to dig your heels in to save the job of a county attorney that the mayor wants to fire for working on our dimes and yours while he handles private cases even as he draws his $180,000 county salary.
Those commissioners spent an hour debating the legal expenses associated with Mayor Weston Wamp's attempt in October to fire County Attorney Rheubin Taylor. Wamp cited destruction of public records, violation of attorney-client privilege and Taylor's private work conducted on county time.
But the commissioners just don't really seem to understand how we got here.
"This is just getting sort of asinine," Commissioner Lee Helton, R-East Brainerd said, wagging his finger at Wamp. "This is a clown show. We're not doing anything as a commission except talking about our current county attorney (and) the mayor. It's like one of those tabloids. This is getting a little ridiculous. We need to find some resolution -- I don't care what it is -- but we need to be the grownups in the room, guys. This is a waste. This is a big waste."
"Clown show" is too kind a description.
Helton and the rest of the commissioners lectured Wamp.
But they needed to be lecturing Taylor. And they needed to be wagging their fingers at each other.
Still, one after another, they admonished Wamp to drop the case.
"The mayor initiated this lawsuit," Commissioner David Sharpe said, leading the charge.
Never mind that the lawsuit was brought by Taylor, who sued Wamp and convinced the commissioners to rehire him -- despite two outside legal opinions obtained by Wamp saying he has the authority to hire and fire the county attorney and that the former county mayor's contract with Taylor could be voided.
Four months later, we taxpayers have spent $72,000 and, according to the outside attorney hired by the commission to represent commissioners (because Taylor can't represent them in a case he instigated), we may well spend another $200,000 if the case continues to court.
When that attorney, John Konvalinka, began describing the possible future costs to commissioners on Wednesday, they may finally have gotten a glimmer of what a ridiculous quagmire they've gotten themselves into with -- as one put it -- "the county suing itself."
The trouble is, they still don't seem to understand -- or want to -- what to do about it.
When this "clown show" started, the commissioners were almost gleeful as they pounded the dais, reeled off resolutions requiring Wamp to put Taylor back on the payroll and asserted, "We'll let a court decide."
Now they want Wamp to "drop it."
The trouble is, Wamp can't "drop it."
And he didn't initiate it.
Wamp was the one who was sued first.
He was sued by Taylor, who didn't like that Wamp wanted to fire him. Taylor, who worked at least 80 private cases while being paid by us. Taylor who had a hand in destroying county records. Taylor, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on outside attorneys to handle county cases without getting the proper OK from commissioners.
And when Wamp was sued by the very attorney that is expected to defend any county employee, even the mayor, Wamp hired his own attorney and responded with a counterclaim.
A few weeks ago, a judge, in the first hearing on the matter, ordered the county commission be added to Wamp's counterclaim.
On Wednesday, the commissioners voted not to pay Wamp's attorneys.
So the morass just gets deeper.
With measured calm, Wamp told them Wednesday he's no happier than they are to be in this situation.
"I was sued. That seems to left out of this discussion," he said.
"We don't want this to be protracted. ... I also have an interest in getting this resolved" and moving on, he told them.
But he also told them, no, he will not withdraw a letter of termination he issued to Taylor at the time of his attempted firing.
Taylor's attorney, Neil Thomas, said Wednesday that remains a central issue in the lawsuit and "constitutes whether or not there is a controversy between the parties."
"The important thing that we should flesh out -- and the community supports us in fleshing out -- is how this process works," Wamp told commissioners citing state laws near the end of their meeting. "Not whether you can bully me by suggesting that ... you would withhold legal representation from the county mayor of Hamilton County. (It's) effectively a tactic that is intent -- it feels -- on forcing my hand into not terminating the county attorney."
This clown show is the commission that cannot understand it needs a better county attorney to represent it -- and us.