Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz announced Wednesday that for financial reasons, it would be in Eugene’s best interest to make the city attorney a city employee for the first time in 35 years.
Before the change, Glenn Klein from the outside law firm Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, P.C. handled the city’s legal matters. Klein, who has been the city’s primary attorney for 20 years, accepted an offer from Ruiz to work exclusively as a city employee.
“Harrang Long has provided the city with highest-quality legal service for more than three decades. This choice is intended to further improve an already strong legal delivery system,” Ruiz said. “Glenn is one of a very small number of highly qualified municipal attorneys in the state and he has an in-depth, essential institutional knowledge and experience of the City of Eugene.”
Ruiz urges residents to understand that his decision to make the city attorney a city employee is not because of a concern about the quality of Harrang Long Gary Rundick, P.C. firm’s counsel to the city, but is an attempt to reconcile budget deficiencies. It is anticipated that the move will save the city more than $200,000 annually.
“If it saves the city some money and we could get better or equal legal support for the city, then I am in full support with the manager’s decision,” City Councilor George Poling said. “With the financial climate as it is, it would be irresponsible to not try and save.”
However, Bill Gary, chair of Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, P.C., is not convinced the city will save money by taking on an additional city employee. Poling said that a 1998 University of California, Berkeley study examined the benefits of hiring an in-house city attorney in Berkeley and found the city saved little to no money.
“The study gives evidence of how costs are not reduced by hiring an in-house city attorney,” Gary said. “But in addition, the city should not overlook the fact that in difficult financial times, the need for city legal services tend to go up rather than down.”
The City of Eugene’s current contract with Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, P.C. for city legal services runs until June 30, 2010, but Ruiz approached the firm in January with a proposal to amend the contract to end in July.
The firm was willing to accommodate the change as long as Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, P.C. remains the city’s exclusive contractor for outside legal work until 2012. However, if the city hires three in-house attorneys, the contract would end in July 2013.
Ruiz said the city might hire up to three attorneys, but he was not set on hiring that number. The decision would not be made until after July, he said.
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