Tag: Kahn

In the final weeks of the outgoing city council, Salida City Attorney Ben Kahn submitted bills to the city totaling another $106,854.20, bringing the total he has billed the City for 20 months as city attorney to $539,286.59. Further analysis of these charges will follow as more detailed information becomes available.  (See the updated bill summaries.)

The amount billed by City Attorney Ben Kahn in 18 ½ months, from 3/15/2016 through 9/30/2017, is $484,010.88*.

The amount billed by Kahn so far in 2017 is $267,802.43*.

Of the total amount billed, as of 10/24/2017, all but $28,591.16*, has been paid by the City. Continue reading “Fees paid City Attorney near ½ Million Dollars”

In his campaign speeches, the mayor continuously states:  That, “this year, our attorney has only cost us $36,000.”  (YouTube Video of Candidate Forum, 10/18/2017, @ 2:03:27).  But the bills paid log on the City’s website shows the following payments to the City Attorney, “The Conundrum Group” for 2017, January through August:

January                $46,079.89

February              $12,414.01

April                     $27,856.86

May                      $22,174.15

June                      $41,469.93

July                       $40,653.73

YTD Total           $190,648.57*

The bills paid lag the bills sent by about one month.

* The bills paid YTD, as posted on the city’s website, are only through August, 2017.  The Mountain Mail of October 19, 2017, reports that the total paid Kahn’s firm, The Conundrum Group, according to a spreadsheet provided by the City, is $249,971.55, year to date. That is exactly the total of the bills we reported dated 12/25/2016 through 8/10/2017.  It does not include the bill dated 9/5/2017, or any received by the City after that.  It includes no charges for services performed since July.  The Mountain Mail article also states an amount paid by the City to special counsel Lee Phillips, which is $34,785.08. Perhaps that is what the mayor was referring to in his campaign speeches.

In the controversy over Mayor Jim LiVecchi’s exclusive control of the City Attorney, the Mayor’s approval of legal bills, merely from a list and without reading the bills themselves, has been called into question. (See posts below.) As expected, this practice not only omits oversight of the City Attorney, but invites costly errors. A review of public records shows that this has indeed been the result.

In August 2017, the City Attorney submitted his bills that included charges through July.  Individual bills (not publicly available) as well as a bill summary dated 8/11/2017, were sent by the City Attorney to the mayor who, according to his practice, files them only on his personal laptop computer, and not on the City’s server for others who might understand them to see. It is not publicly known whether the mayor ever looked at the detailed individual bills, but he did approve and initial individual charges on the bill summary and authorized payment to the City Attorney of $18,906.28.

Then in September 2017 another bill summary dated 9/5/2017 for items totaling $31,238.46 was received by the mayor along with three detailed bills dated 9/1/2017 totaling $12,328.18. The 22 other matters on the summary seemed to lack detailed bills. These undocumented other matters happened to total $18,906.28, the exact amount approved by the mayor for payment to the City Attorney in the previous month. A look at the 9/5/17 bill summary does show that these other items were dated one month earlier than the three documented items. Comparing the two summaries shows that they were in fact duplicates of the charges already approved for payment by the mayor in the previous month. Nonetheless, the mayor approved them again, authorizing payment to the City Attorney of another $31,238.46 when only due $12,328.18 was due, which would be an over-payment of $18,906.28.

And another point: Why has the City Attorney not yet billed for work done since July?