Jackson Free Press

In a special meeting this afternoon, City Council confirmed that City Attorney Sarah O'Reilly-Evans has been issued a check for around $45,000 for her work on the convention center bond. "There was nothing we could do to stop this," Council President Ben Allen said.

City Council also decided to hold a further meeting on the matter on Nov. 22 after consultation with outside counsel. That counsel, according to Allen, will review O'Reilly-Evans' contract and the circumstances surrounding her payment for the bond issuance and then advise City Council.

In a tense back and forth, Councilman Frank Bluntson and Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon sparred over O'Reilly-Evans' payment. "No one is saying that (O'Reilly-Evans) did anything illegal by taking this money, is that correct?" Bluntson asked.

"I'm not saying it was illegal," Barrett-Simon replied, "but as the city attorney, I would think she would let us know that this clause was in her contract."

Barrett-Simon went on to argue that O'Reilly-Evans' failure to inform council of the clause in her contact allowing her to receive extra payment for work on bonds illustrated why City Council needed its own attorney.

At the close of the meeting, Councilman Marsand Crisler asked when City Council would hold confirmation hearings for Interim Fire Chief Todd Chandler. "This man has been in there for two years now, and we still haven't had a confirmation hearing," Crisler said. He argued that such a hearing was vital for a "paramilitary" organization like the fire department, where morale is "very low." Allen said that he understood that Chandler would come before the council within the next two or three weeks.

Here is O'Reilly-Evans' contract (PDF, 1MB) and here is the state law (PDF, 115 K).

See the story written by Adam Lynch that first brought this to the public, broken on this Web site.

Previous Commentsshow

Sarah O'Riley Evans is NOT a Bond Attorney. She has absolutely no expertise in this area. This is a shame and it sounds like double-dipping. Did she work on this outside of the time that she was expected to be on the job as Attorney for the City????? Get Real Crisler - This is my problem with some of you City Council Members. They know good and well that Frank said he would NEVER bring Chandler up for confirmation but he would keep him acting as long as he is Mayor. The time to jump on that dog and pony show was when the Circus began. Everything he (fm) has said or done has been one BIG JOKE. Tillman needs to take his hind-part to the house. Bluntson needs to get on his knees and pray for forgiveness for the Youth Detention Sadness. Stokes is trying to heal from his attachment to the Melton Mess but has egg on his face and is totally impotent as a Councilperson. Barret-Simone seems to be the only person with any real BALLS. The rest seem to melt when it is time to stand up. Where is McLemore? I'm going home today and make a picture of "polly-pop." This has gotten on my last nerve!

justjess

Nov 9 2006

Bottom line...the council should have reviewed her contract before/during her confirmation. Do I think her contract is unfair to the citizens of the city...yes! The council should have done their homework, period! Had they, this would not be an issue.

Big Tee

Nov 9 2006

There was some talk along those lines in council today, Big Tee. Bluntson said that because council had approved the clause, it rested in council's laps. I think certain members' frustration is that even though O'Reilly-Evans was supposed to be acting as council's attorney, she didn't make a peep to them about this clause or its potential monetary consequence. Ben Allen pointed out today that although O'Reilly-Evans did nothing illegal by taking the money, she certainly wasn't required to take the money either, particularly in light of the public uproar over this and the council's ongoing concern. Which brings us around to the question of whether or not council needs its own attorney.

Brian C Johnson

Nov 9 2006

Well, well, $45,000.00 here; $45,000.00 there. Soon equals almost $100,000.00 or 10% of a Million Big Ones!! Then there is the $65,000 (or however much it was) in overtime for the 'bodyguards'. Don't even really get me started; I believe I could almost hit $10,000,000.00 and then add missed opportunities in Washington. Odd that SORE got the same amount as was awarded for FM's veto of the Mississippi Link bid. And, this is just the beginning.

ChrisCavanaugh

Nov 9 2006

Aren't there tapes of the Council Meetings regarding SORE's contract? Was this discussed in executive session? Surely there is documentation to review of how her contract was presented to the Council and what was asked and what was stated at that time.

ChrisCavanaugh

Nov 9 2006

Yeah, get the tapes if they haven't been lost or destroyed! The Ledge posted this story about SORE at 5:45pm, today. How not one council-member can produce copies of the contracts they were given at the time is very troubling. BTW: It may not be illegal Mr. Bluntson; but, it sure is shady! Kind of like Melton, his clique, and yourself!

pikersam

Nov 9 2006

And another thing, how is the city able to hire all this outside help without putting out bids for the service, and then keeping it from the public whom they hired? Shady!

pikersam

Nov 9 2006

i've actually had a situation where i called to retrieve records of a city council meeting and the clerk said the machine had unfortunately been unplugged the whole time. it just happened to be during a meeting where they admitted fault in a situation they were then trying to recant. but don't get me wrong, i have many good things to say about some of them as well...

daniel johnson

Nov 9 2006

So what is everyone arguing about here? Are they not going to pay the city attorney her fee? Ha! A signed contract, signed by both parties (the city attorney and the city council), dated, and recognized as having consideration and no illegality is not going to be enforced? Wow. Now that would be funny. Sure, it sucks that she is getting paid way too much, but its a legal contract and she deserves to get paid. Sure she isn't a bond attorney, but she is an attorney who fullfilled her end of the contract. I hope the city coucil does not pay and she sues the shit out of the city of Jackson. If the city council is so worried about paying her then they should have read the damn contract, and all this stuff about "not remembering seeing that clause" doesn't fly when it comes to a court. Its not like the city council is a bunch of country bumpkins who got duped by a mega-corporation over selling their land for peanuts. At least I hope the city council is not made of country bumpkins. Giving the city council the benefit of the doubt of having READ AND SIGNED contracts before, they should have recognized this. My main point: pay the lady her cash. Like her, don't like her, who care, she did her job and has a contract.

E

Nov 10 2006

I think she has her cash already, doesn't she?. You assume alot by assuming this is a legal contract. If I make a contract with the city that provides for payment, and the state law does not approve that payment, then payment under that contract provision is improper. Furthermore, it is simply legally naieve to assume that because there is a signed contract, all disputes are moot. My question is, how did she fulfil that contact? Was there a breach of the contract? Is she charging the city for bond work when, in fact, she did not do bond work. A lot depends on the wording of the contract. No one has bothered to post it, so I will not comment anymore on this dead issue, but the double hearsay from the various media is that the contract hinges her payment as a percentage of whatever the bond attorneys were paid. Here they were paid 90 so she gets 45. If this is the case, this conflicts, IMO with the statute which requires the additional compensation to be based on actual bond work, not a formula based on other peoples actual bond work. Have you read the statute? Obviously, the argument here is that the council approved it, so what? If they did, and this was ultra vires, they they, and not the city, are liable, as someone else here pointed out in another thread. Its funny how people always point that out about the Mayor, but never in reference to other elected officials. Are the City Council bonded? Any one know? Bah, here is another legal rule for you, possession is 9/10ths of the law. This is a dead horse...... until election time.

Niles Hooper

Nov 10 2006

sarahs contract is posted on the web page of the ledger.actually frank signed the contract not the council. one issue outside council may delve into is a possible ethical violation by sarah under rule 1.8(a) of the ethical rules for attorneys.

chimneyville

Nov 10 2006

Wow. Thats the provision causing the problem? Forget the ethical problem for a minute, this is just obviously a void contract provision in light of the statute. This contract provision appears to be ultra vires, which reveals the suppossed inability to oppose SOE's compensation an obvious political, and not legal issue. Biloxi Firefighters Assoc. v. City of Biloxi, 810 So.2d 589 (Miss. 2002). Or, to put it bluntly: A board... [or other government entity] may not, by contract, preclude itself or its successors in office from the right and the duty to exercise the power given it by a statute, whenever, in its judgment or discretion, it is deemed necessary to exercise a clearly granted power. Id at para. 12 (quoting, American Oil Co. v. Marion County, 187 Miss. 148, 192 So. 296 (1939)). So, I will posit again, can the City delegate a determination of what constitutes "reasonable compensation" to a non governmental entity, i.e. the outside bond counsel? Can they abrogate their duty to determine what is "reasonable compensation" by deferring to outside counsel's underwriting of the bond? Uh... no. The statute clearly makes it the duty of the "governing authorities" to determine what reasonable compensation is. You can't simply assign this duty away and then throw your hands up and say you are unable to do anything. The ball is clearly in the Council AND THE MAYOR's court, contrary to the somewhat odd protestations that "gee, we had a contract I guess there is nothing we can do" This is obviously a political issue at this point. Clearly the Mayor is supporting SOE in this given the tenor of reporting on the meetings between Allen and the Mayor. At least Allen, Barret Simone, and Crisler have raised the issue. I have no real beef (legally that is, see my earlier comment about election time) if the Council and Mayor clearly decide to do nothing and pay the woman, but PLEASE quit hiding behind the law as a justification for political decisions. The City Council has the power. The Mayor has the power. Let her sue, she will lose. Ridiculous.

Niles Hooper

Nov 10 2006

I posted links to O'Reilly-Evans' contract and state law above, along with a link to our original breaking story on this matter.

Brian C Johnson

Nov 10 2006

And while SORE gets a brand new wing to her house. People like Mary were left to depend on public donations after Melton tore her house down, and left her high and dry. It's a circus of clowns at City Hall.

pikersam

Nov 10 2006

My bad, Brian, I must have missed the contract, all I saw was the enormous JFP watermark, my bad. Can you copyrright a public document? Jeeezus this is annoying. Goodnight.

Niles Hooper

Nov 10 2006

SORE is GREEDY! GREEDY! GREEDY! GREEDY! Greed is one of the seven deadly sins!

pikersam

Nov 13 2006

Pike: I call her smart. If Marshand decides to run for Mayor, first question should be does he know how to read a contract.

Kingfish

Nov 13 2006

Looks like seven of them can't read a contract. It is the current administration that is the problem and it doesn't bolster your argument in any way to single out any one council member in this fiasco. I'll take the aggressive questioning of Barrett-Simon and Crisler over the back-peddling of Allen in this matter and several others - or the silence of Tillman, and the whisper of McLemore. In fact, it is Allen who is implying, several times in the press, that SORE's contract may have been altered after they read it. What about that? I guess it is Crisler who is at fault for not keeping copies of relevant paper work. You know... because the others do such a good job at it! I guess Bluntson is a good steward of our tax dollars when he defends SORE's contract and the excessive bonuses. I don't think this is a case where people should get sidetracked by stupid stuff.

pikersam

Nov 13 2006

I picked on him cuz he might run for mayor. Obvioufly they are all at fault.

Kingfish

Nov 13 2006

Pike makes a good point. It's the ones who stand up and try to do something about it that can, at least halfway, make up for not paying attention in the past. So far, that seems to be Crisler, McLemore and Barrett-Simon. All are willing to talk to the public; Allen wants to do everything behind closed doors. BTW, what happened to that confirmation of the fire chief he talked about? It seems like he's trying to provide cover for the adminstration these days. Let's hope that interest doesn't overtake that of the public.

DonnaLadd

Nov 14 2006

I wanted to post this comment somewhere here, but I couldn't really find the right comment page. I didn't want to post on the Melton stuff, because this is way off topic, but did anyone see Congressman Rangel's comments about Mississippi? What a jerk thing to say. Rangel apparently is a small minded man and is a good representation of Northeast elite liberals.

E

Nov 14 2006

E, there's a whole thread about that already. Please don't hijack this thread. I'll delete these comments, so please move them over there if you want to keep them.

DonnaLadd

Nov 14 2006

E: are you stupid or just plain lazy?

Kingfish

Nov 14 2006

doh. E-stalking horse. I might go visit that thread though...... Has anyone watched the council meeting from last week. What justification does the council have to relegate every single issue to executive session? Its also pretty annoying that the dern meeting is so prolonged by fluff that the substantive matters can not be covered in a reasonable amount of time, i.e. PEG rebroadcasting 3 hours is insufficient to get to the meat of the issues b/c of honors, street renaming, grandstanding, and general CSPAN style "for da people!" speeches. I read the print story on this last night. I still don't agree that they were that "stupid" in executing the original contract. The contract speaks to reasonable compensation. $45,000.00 is not reasonable on the facts presented thus far. Furthermore, when Prospere was confronted with this (sort of) by Crisler regarding whether this was paid out of claims or out of salery he got a cryptic response regarding the fact that bond counsel will be paid out of the proceeds of the bond, meaning, this payment to both SOE and bond counsel was probably specified in greater detail in some document other than the SOE contract. We probably need to take a look at the bond proposals themselves. At the council meeting the Mayor indicated there was a pay out sheet. JFP should request that via open records. According to the Mayor this sheet shows pay outs. My point is that the SOE contract does not lend itself to notice that she would be getting a windfall amount. Where is the 1/2 of bond counsel provision that was referred to? Is that in the outside bond counsel's agreement? Did I miss it in her contract? Kingfish, can you say that if you had read this provision you would have realized that SOE was going get a contingency fee? Based on that language?

Niles Hooper

Nov 14 2006

Anyone who follows the City Council hearings must realize it is all show! There is no substantiate problem solving going on between council members and the mayor's office. The City Council has had a "policy analyst" for several years now who is a licensed attorney. Why isn't she checking over important documents? If the tax payers of this City knew what really goes on behind the scenes, they would riot in the streets. Also, Mr. Crisler, if the morale is low in the Fire Department, it is probably because they aren't crazy about their interium chief. Maybe someone actually talk to the employees about these things rather than assuming they want their interium chief to stay.

realtime

Nov 17 2006

We really should start reading our contracts when they concern the masses ~ shouldn't we council? "realtime" - not to upmanship you, but my understanding is that Crisler DID speak to many of the firefighters and found out that we are now losing some of our senior firefighters to other agency's! I applaud Crisler for asking the question - obviously, however, the city council has allowed this to 'drift along' for such an extended time without asking questions, we are in danger of losing those whom we should be looking to as our next leaders! I believe there is no doubt that the interim chief has been the crux of the problems within the fire dept., however, that falls back on the shoulders of Melton (those weak skinny ones) and his lack of understanding when it comes to city government. His choice of a leader for this fire dept. has proved to be (in most people's opinion) an obvious payback/friendship/owed favor because there has been no one that can explain how Chandler came from a firefighter working in the field with no admin. experience and is now the leader of the dept. (This information was provided numerous times on misc. threads regarding the fire dept. since this fiasco began, so it is not my personal knowledge) However, in speaking to a friend of mine recently who is a fireman, I have discovered that apparently some of our surrounding depts. including Hattiesburg are enjoying the 'problems' in our dept. and are actively recruiting our senior officers away from Jackson, as well, he was even telling me that some of the JFD-5 (*5 senior officers who were suspended for 1st ammendment) are leaving and taking jobs elsewhere. ALSO, it was brought to my attention that the same thing is happening with the police dept. The morale is non-existent, we have an idiot for a mayor, an underqualified Fire & Police Chief, and crime is at the highest it's been in recent years - so yes, let us just send the men & women that Jackson's City $ have trained to our surrounding citites, why? Because we obviously are stupid (referring to government). The Fire & Police Dept.'s are already under-manned, we will find it hard to recruit new, quality employees due to the problems within both dept.'s and even if we do recruit new employees for these dept.'s, who is left to train them? The quality & most trained senior officer's we have are LEAVING! So Crisler, I do applaud you for asking the question, unfortunantly for our dept.'s you might be to late!

Katie D

Nov 18 2006

Excellent post Katie D......... Just to throw out a 'suppose it happened that way': What if, SORE stated to the Council that her contract was totally standard and in compliance with state law. What if someone "forgot" to include it in the advance papers and only gave them copies at the time of the Council meeting. Has anyone reviewed the tapes of the work session and the video of the Council Meeting when SORE's contract was approved?

ChrisCavanaugh

Nov 18 2006

I'd bet $1000 that they do not have a tape at PEG. Somehow, it will be lost. We know that they wouldn't have to courage to release it if they had said tape.

pikersam

Nov 18 2006

BTW: It just so happens that WAPT is going to have a special (Tuesday) on police officers leaving the force and an interview with a former officer. Broken Justice for sure! Good points Katie. It is really sad that our council doesn't see the systemic problem that Melton's appointees have caused within our first responders.

pikersam

Nov 18 2006

Donna, I am sure Crisler has talked with members of the Fire Department. But forcing the Mayor to put the confirmation of the "wrong person" for Fire Chief will not help the morale. Johnson had Interium Directors for as long as two years and they function in exactly the same capacity as the confirmed Director. The Council needs to insist that the Mayor is appointing qualified people for his Directorships and if not, they should not vote to confirm them.

realtime

Nov 18 2006

I have even heard a few of the firefighters talking about the rumor that Melton is looking for a place to put Chandler on the police department if he is not confirmed. I wonder if he will make him "Chief Metermaid"?

rufus

Nov 19 2006

Kind of harsh there rufus.......and not to be ugly, but he would at least be 'qualifed' (over-qualifed) for that position. I feel sorry for Mr. Chandler in a way. For whatever reason Frank put him up there he essentially was set up for failure, as he did not have the necessary qualifications and/or administrative background that is obviously needed when your dealing with a multi-million dollar budget. However, Mr. Chandler should have known, and/or realized quickly that he clearly did not have the backing of the men or the background to 'get the job done'. To save himself some embarressment he should have stepped down. Clearly, Frank is allowing him to become yet another 'whipping boy' and taking one for the cause!

Katie D

Nov 19 2006