Council renews contract with Town attorney
The Town of Fort Myers Beach will continue to retain outside counsel after a bid to bring legal services in-house failed to gain Council support.
The elected board voted 3-2 at its Dec. 9 meeting to renew its contract with Attorney John Herin Jr., rejecting the policy change brought forward by by Mayor Anita Cereceda and Councilmember Rexann Hosafros.
Board members Bruce Butcher, Joanne Shamp and Ray Murphy voted in support of Herin following comments by Hosafros and Cereceda Dec. 4 that they wanted an in-house lawyer.
The issue came up during talks to renew Herin’s contract, which was signed in December of last year but technically expired Sept. 30. Cereceda and Hosafros said the issue wasn’t personal but that they wanted a local, in-house attorney. Fox Rothschild, Herin’s Miami-based firm, has been paid $108,290 by the town as of Oct. 30. Herin’s previous firm, Gray Robinson, was paid $17,683. The new contract is for a $10,500 a month retainer retroactive to Oct. 1.
The town also paid $91,813.50 to its former attorney David Peterson during the 2018-19 fiscal year (which runs from October to September), the majority of which was for services provided before Herin’s tenure and during the transition.
During debate at the board’s Dec. 5 meeting, Murphy was the lone board member who hadn’t yet made up his mind.
“I have no complaints whatsoever,” Murphy said regarding Herin’s performance. “I see both sides of this argument.”
At the Dec. 11 meeting, when the contract was up for a vote, Murphy said “I’m in favor at this point until I have a better option of renewing John’s contract.”
At the Dec. 5 meeting, Hosafros said “I think John’s a nice guy. I’ve been happy with a lot of his legal work. There are other things I’m less happy with. But the thing I’m most unhappy with isn’t really John, it’s that we’ve hired somebody who is with a law firm that isn’t local to the area.”
In her previous term, Hosafros said she advocated for an in-house counsel so that staff could communicate with an attorney easily rather than writing emails.
Cereceda had a similar position and told Herin Dec. 9 that his job is “at will.”
At the previous meeting, Cereceda explained her position further. “This isn’t a personal thing. It’s a policy shift for me and I have spoken to several LPA (Local Planning Agency) members. There seems to be a feeling that it would be in the town’s best interest to have someone here.
“This isn’t a normal upheaval,” she said. “This is just a shift what would be best as we move into this next period of the town’s life, what will serve us best, and I believe we should review our options.
“Hopefully having somebody here (at town hall) present that would be my preference,” Cereceda said. “Not that John hasn’t been accessible but it is different to pop in and sit down at somebody’s desk than it is to make a phone call.”
Herin said he is in the Fort Myers Beach office at town hall on a weekly basis, “sometimes more, sometimes less depending on what is going on.”
Shamp said “I’m very pleased,” with Herin. Continuing with Herin would be a “good cohesive transition” for the new town council taking office in March, she said. “They will have had time to work with him and decide on their own.”
Butcher said he was for an in-house counsel previously.
“We ended up getting a guy that was out of town and then he quit before he started and then we ended up getting John,” Butcher said.
“I don’t have any problem with John’s work and the idea of rotating people in and out bothers me,” he said. “I don’t see any reason to change the horse just because ‘well maybe we ought to change the horse.’ If the horse was lame and not running the race I would be all for it.”
Herin’s hiring in December 2018, followed the board’s hiring of David Paterson in Jan. 2017. Prior to that, the board was served by attorney Dawn Lehnert, who was hired in Oct. 2015.