legislative attorney carla not kata and we also have our legislative attorney sharon brooks i'm going to go ahead and check in with our district offices and hahn office are you there hon offices or anyone wishing to testify thank you in when i district office is there anyone wishing to testify you thank you very much and merry christmas have a great weekend without in any objections members would like to close public testimony no joke here it is a public testimony is now close turning to our only item on today's agenda cowed to special counsel to advise and represent the counsel for the two thousand and fifteen two thousand and seventeen term of this is before us the committee is rooted in receipt of the following the county communication fifteen dash ninety from the council chair michael white transmitting a proposed resolution to authorize the employment of special counsel to provide independent legal advice and representation to the council for the two thousand and fifteen two thousand and seventeen council term for a total compensation not to exceed fifty thousand per fiscal year and number two the correspondence dated december eleventh two thousand and fifteen from council chair michael white transmitting a revised proposed resolution in title authorizing the employment of special counsel to advise and represent the council on certain matters for the two thousand and fifteen two thousand and seventeen term the revised proposed resolution increases the total compensation limit to two thousand to seventy five thousand per fiscal year and provides additional bases for the retention of special counsel by the council the committee may consider whether to recommend adoption of the revised those resolution with or without further revisions the committee may also consider the filing of county communication fifteen dash nine zero and other related matters so as we begin i think will go ahead and we'll have the resolution the amended resolution read in its entirety so that the members of the full understanding and yes mr chair authorizing the employment if the special counsel to advise and represent the council on certain matters for the two thousand and fifteen two thousand and seventeen term or as the council has found a frequent need for independent legal advice and formal legal opinions and whereas section eight dash two point three print to the vice charter of the where as charter section three six prince six authorizes the council by a two thirds vote to retain or employ special counsel for any special matter presenting a real necessity for such employment and where as a real necessity for the council to employ special counsel exists when the department is unable to provide legal advice and representation to the council on questions presenting an actual or potential conflict of interests with the executive branch and where as the council has an occasional need to enter into litigation against the executive branch as in my county council verses thompson eighty  the department to inherently favor the executive branch in its advice and opinions because the mayor is the only official who can initiate terminations of the corporation council under the charter and the department is an executive branch agency under the mayor's management and whereas the council me from time to time require confidential advice from its attorney not subject to disclosure to them their in instances where the department has an actual or potential conflict of interests and where as specific examples of issues or actions for which the council may have benefited or may yet benefit from independent advice from special council include the following proposed bill relating to press release guidelines and requirements of the proposed bill relating to public nuisance information a referral from the department of the corporation council has a behind that a basis for their inability to approve the bills article five either publicly or privately and quote and whereas the council finds that because of a conflict of interests there is a real necessity to retain special counsel to investigate and evaluate and represent the counsel during the two thousand and fifteen two thousand and seventeen term on matters that represent an actual or potential conflict of interest and whereas the counsel for the employment of special counsel to be selected by the legislative branch as chief procurement officer to advise and represent the council on matters stream with two thousand and fifteen two thousand and seventeen term that represent an actual or potential conflict of interest and to that the special counsel shall report the counsel's committee of the whole on all matters which represent an actual or potential conflict of interest and three that such matters mean clued a the legality of the mare's employee communication directive and if necessary representation of the council against the administration in a declaratory action be whether or into limits the council's legislative authority see the legality of proposed bills and resolutions the department of the corporation council has refused to sign and de defend to the council if the denial of the mayor's uniform information practices act request for old wiley could post office results in a legal conflict and for that total compensation for the employment of special counsel shall not exceed seventy five thousand dollars per  year and five that special counsel shall take all possible steps to minimize the level of attorney's fees and costs and six that the hourly rate for the primary attorney shall not exceed three hundred fifty dollars and seven case three fees of the clerk a marshal for fees of the court reporter for necessary transcripts five docket fees and six compensation of court appointed experts and interpreters and eleven but the non compensable costs jelling clude one telephone calls to facsimile charges three posts all charges for messenger charges five fees for computerized legal research six travel  extraordinary or compelling circumstances seven investigative expenses and eight other costs reasonably considered part of the law firm's overhead and twelve that instances of travel both int resolution approving such action and fourteen that increases in the total compensation authorized or substantial charges to the responsibilities of special counsel shall require prior co makes ten beyond those of a similarly situated private again and sixteen that certified copies of this resolution be transmitted to the mayor the corporation council the director of  and you know i think all of us are very impressed with a lot of the work that is done by corporation counsel but there are items from time to time that and in my view require that we have our own second opinion as as the case may be the special counsel in my view is is needed to provide independent unbiased and as importantly confidential advice  the council this is a real necessity you know we under the charter corporation counsel is the chief legal advisor to both the administration and the counsel but recently situations have  risen where the counsels and mayors interests come into a bit of conflict and corporation counsel has consistently supported the administration's perspectives and legal opinions have uniformly favor of the administrative branch or executive branch despite clear authority and arguments supporting the view of the legislative branch there are several specific justifications for a special council in the first is over the last year or so council has refused to sign off on bills and resolutions and the question that comes up is does the charter prohibition on a council members giving direct orders to administration personnel actually limit the council's ability to pass laws and just for perspective there are somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred forty places in the code that say either the mayor or a specific department head shall do something that's not us telling them directly that they need to  they need to do something we're setting policy so our staffs research shows that that is that is not a correct legal finding and in their view so we need to we need assistance and terminate that in addition to that there's questions about the employee communication directive and does it ministration have the authority to prohibit executive to legislative branch communications and to what degree  they have that authority and once again our staffs research finds that that that directive may not be correct and i think it's important for us to get an request of confidential executive session minutes i don't know but that may be that may become the case and fourthly the counsel's need for counsel confidential advice we've confidence were actually shared with department heads or other members of the administration and we have a situation in which you had present and  for review and requested an opinion and that opinion was shared with the administration we had the situation with and name you know special counsel for individuals in one of our recent  cases of litigation where you and i had been in a discussion the day before and been given assurances from our counsel that they would be able to represent the  individuals but following the discussion that afternoon which i thought was subject to attorney client privilege the administration was informed and  had several department had show up at the hearing the next day boy seen you know significant concern if we were going to pass something while we had no intention of not passing it but that conversation i thought was kind of financial turned out not to be the case so it's for these reasons that i feel we have a real necessity to have our own counsel not that we're going to use all the time but just simply or found in favor of our staff attorneys i'd also like a special counsel opinion on whether or not the conversations that we have with our attorneys in house should be remain confidential but it we've been told by core counsel that the confidentiality is with in the count within the entire county not in the legislative branch and not with us individually so it turns out that it's up to corp council whether they  determine to keep something confidential or not this is a shock to me and i think it's probably a shock to other members that attorney client privilege does not apply to conversations we have with our attorneys so i think it's important that we find out if that's the right interpretation or not so thank you very much there with you charlie is there any i might open up the floor to for discussion  related to the council or legislative branch it's a surprise to me that we have to come to this point in this point in time within the company's governance and because i felt in the past or and an appropriate resource of what the pilot there's nobody else there and the only ones that should be making comment up but would that litigation or case should come from but council itself or through our attorney that we authorize prepared statement on our behalf if you notice this many times or the administration is giving out press releases and then that even in a second if session so how to how do they have information to give to the public when we are still litigation and everything still in these to be confined and confidential until it decision is made on that case that is disappointing and of course we all know how will even consider doing something improper they have a contract to protect it they have a collective bargaining each to protect they have public law to protect them so find it  interesting how this is moving forward and i support the requests because for me this continually shit tells me three things about this administration to i'm going to reiterate over and over this is their legacy for me i cannot trust them they're having to take grady and that because counsel response to actions by the administration we don't respond before something happens and that's why when we do audits and we do that are holding the measure accountable it's about how we've come to this but i am in no doubt that we need another legal voice to properly represent us to maintain the confidentiality and if need be i don't have a problem looking at legislation to put into the code to to me i got my own opinions so treatment when you're ready i'm happy to consider the motion in this time i am very much in favor of see corinne's pressure council sooner than executive session i also find it disturbing and i'd sure like to hear that opinion you know i am sure mr white is hearing it correctly when it was given to himself but that that anything we say to corporation counsel individually is not privileged conver communication i'm i'm i would be very disturbed if that were the case as well you know that's it's jet my assumption all this time that you know any time we have a discussion with corporation counsel that that about yes they call it chinese wall but i think we turned to change that to firewalls and make it a little bit more politically correct but there's the whole firewall situation and we've had corporation counsel sit here and say look we we can firewall everybody off  and it's against their code of conduct for them to to make the discussions to break that firewall so i don't know about going all the way to special counsel yet i would like to give that a try the other thing here is  you know one of the one of the where it resolves the legality of the mare's employee communication directive i would just want to point the members to our county code chapter two point six zero zero zero one zero that the council not this council nine hundred seventy seven council created it says number one the only thing in that section is all communications to the council from department heads shall be made through the mayor except however the corporation council may respond directly upon request made by council relative to an investigation by the council of the operations of any department or function of the county and subject matter upon which the council may legislate so right there it says i mean this county council not this particular body said no those communications have to be gone to the mayor so i have an issue with that being in here as a reason now i also have an item i think it's in p i a to change that or repeal that we haven't heard of yet it's been in the p i i think of the corporation council can be shared with other people in the county that has or is concerning to disconcerting to me there are some were there some wording in here that i can't support right now so as it stands right now i can't support it but i can certainly support a bunch of you know some revisions to this but at this point i have some issues with the  and i don't want it to be thought that i was referring to things that happened in the executive session oh ok what i was referring to is an opinion that that chair goodman ha requested and the other was a conversation that took place in my office so nothing having to do with executive sessions with mr victory no thank you sheriff i only eight but you know i had a conference call we've had other issues here what about when we're talking about issues like for example employee losses workers comp and all that what does that leave well nobody's discussed that i want to get into it but i'd like to know that if we discuss something in here it stays in here and that's the first thing secondly i'd like to have our own legal opinion because there have been times when you and me and others have sent down legislation and it's been sent back because the admission and ministration doesn't agree to veto it then that's fine but that's not what we do here for we're here to make legislation to help the people of my county and i don't agree that we've had those opinions come back and so it you know we have to proceed without corporation coun approval and i never like that feeling you know i think the if we're talking about an issue let's stick with the issue where the administration agrees with they you come up later when we when we have it in committee and tell us why not that's not a problem  and the other area i'm concerned with is divided loyalties you know is there a divided loyalty i don't know i think a lot of attorneys that we work with are terrific people but i'm always concerned about of a mess of other things i do i'm not totally sold on what your what is being brought forward i think there's some tweaking that needs to be done but i appreciate what you've done mr chair do you know i mean this for discussion purposes i appreciate mr white's efforts in this area i don't totally agree but there's many areas that i do agree with so i'd like some work on it but thank you very much for this opportunity and you know i think a lot of my colleagues carroll thank you i guess i would need i would want to have some sort of clarification i understand why we're trying to push this resolution through but if i look at our powers of of council it already signifies in the charter that we're able to rekey the two terry votes so how i'm reading this is for us to always have we don't have to go through this article or section six it's readily available so the other question i have is we do have legal do they still then do they go to a special counsel do they make their own opinions or do they still try and get opinions from cooperation council i think that those are the kind opinion but when do we draw some lines that whose opinions are we really going to do except my guess is what i'm asking thank you just to limit the sc what this resolution is before yours is special counsel is going to be retained specifically for the issues that are presented in the resolution are nothing more than that and it's when the in these issues are when the there's a conflict between the administration and the counsel and so every other word that is being done through corporation counsels remains the same just specifically think of it as a getting a second opinion if you have a health concern and getting a second opinion by another physician on certain matters and so these are the matters that are before us that that they're that they counsel or the leadership of the council has questions on and needs to consult with a special counsel it's been my understanding that because of the structure in which corporation counsel is set up it's a difficult relationship you know i i definitely feel there strain in there and there pressure because of the fact that they have to represent both branches and it's like having two children and how do you how do you think and take one side over the other or build a chinese wall to consult with one or the other you know that the conflict lies in that you know it's the discretion of the you know corporation counsel whether it's so important that it that he needs or the corporation counsel needs to share that information with they'd ministration or vice versa so there are times where we just need a straight opinion regardless of whether it's going to affect the administration or not and these these issues  are just specific and narrow enough to just have that second opinion and have it done and over with these are questions that we we have and they haven't been  you know i guess to our satisfaction and if the special counsel says hey we agree with corporation counsel well that's good we're done and over with but to have that second opinion i believe is important  corporation cultural in a position to where trust becomes an issue and that's really not fair to there really isn't  make it to where we don't put them in that position i wish there was some other way we could structure this i wish we had somebody full time for a cultural employee or that was working for us an attorney but for the moment i seem to sense probably the biggest auction we could see in that i don't think it's really the best option it's a stopgap ours we we just shifted to the try to form of government not long before that from a board of supervisors for math and again if you look at what the county communication within branches of government and again i share the chairman branches of government are not the same branch and so structurally we are going to have our differences because we have different necessary for and i don't think i'm wrong in staff can correct me and i'm happy to be corrected but i don't think counsel has ever lost a court battle counsel's position i believe every single time we went to court and it says something because corp console supported administration every single time i went to court so i would say look at that record too because this is something about why i counsel to bet venue and decide to go for ruling and the ruling vindicated the council it says something for me it is major what he says to us as counsellors so i would say that again within the terms of the requests i was i'm like mr carroll we need to be  very cognizant and disciplined in what we go into special counsel for i agree with what you and mr white is trying to set up properly and again i think there are times  wish we could have that because i think it would help us in some of the decisions instead of the for decisions you know and again but i still feel the council needs to have this ability to secure a place legal advice to represent i don't see the u s attorney general sitting with the u s senate in the u s house application implementation maybe i can see them leaning toward the administration but in general a policy thing it's within our purview that's our task given by the people so for me i need the best legal advice in three can be come from special counsel so be it and maybe that's where we need to go in the future haven't split because in the past we only had a trial attorney there was no prosecuting attorney there was no cooperation go it was just the county attorney and maybe harlow has something for us to consider i'm not in favor in general put my comment on the record so you know i totally agree with on every one that has presented today and where i stand is that or not actually replacing corporation counsel i think it needs to be understaffed understood that when there is a conflict between the administration and the counsel corporation counsel is caught  between and so these issues that are presented in the resolution are issues that are questions that we need to be answered and i know that cooperation council may have tried to answer them but there there has been other circumstances that dictate or lend some type of i wouldn't say bias or there's a there's an assumption that there's you know it's not coming clearly from a neutral stance or and so i think it at this point to feel that we're comfortable i think we need that third party just to say ok look this mayor's directive was legal the some of the some of the bills that were not properly signed well that's ok or corporation coun was justified or the other remaining issues within this reza some type of reassurance sort of like i said second opinion that says ok we're on the right track or you're not on the right track but i think we've done enough research the council services side to come up with or at least found that the legal basis for some of these issues  need further explanation or at least a special counsel to advise us and that's what we need and it would be nice to have that special counsel in now so that we could go into executive session and discuss this further and it would be the end of it but we need in order to get special counsel to go into executive session we have to pass a resolution to allow us to obtain special counsel and then at that point we can discuss we may not even need to go any further than that special counsel may advise us on what route we need to take in restructuring or other matters but that's where i stand at this point is there any further mr white thank you chair i just want to again reiterate that this is not in referenced from a confidentiality standpoint this is not in reference to anything having to as haven't taken place in the executive session this is only with our personal our one to one contacts with cork council outside of executive session yet thing i think is important to point out this is we have four issues here out of dozens and dozens and dozens of issues that we deal with with and through core council  throughout the years and so to me this is this is not a not at all against core council because they as i said in the beginning they do a very good job in the vast majority of things this is simply allowing us to get us a second opinion ask the question get the answer and move on you know whether we're right or whether they're right it doesn't matter to me but if we have a question i think it's fair i think it's appropriate fair and necessary for us to be able to get that that answer that we're looking for so we can move on whether it's a policy issue or whether it's something else so i  appreciate everybody's perspective but i think this is something that we we need to do because we need to be able to get advice hopefully avoid any unnecessary use of our taxpayers funds we have the ability at least and maybe if people if the members aren't come for with this and then i understand but the whole firewall issue i mean that's code of a code of conduct you know where you have a initials for that but the lawyers code of conduct i forget what it's called they can't do that they can't break that confidentiality if we set up the firewall i would be willing to work on that first before spending money also somebody brought up a good point there we have a legislator we have the potential to have a we have legislative analyst's attorneys that talk about you know help us with crafting our laws is there why can't we hire our own attorney downstairs to be our attorney for these second opinions if if you if you're interested in doing something like that have somebody with that that's that's a possibility you know we talk and then you mention that that this is this is specific this is actually fairly wide open in my opinion course i'm not a lawyer if this were more specific i'd be a little bit more amenable to it but you know it talks about ok janelle lookout council has occasional need to enter into litigation last ok jle need was in one thousand nine hundred six and my question is how many of those in has happened since you know the fifty's or whatever i am not sure that there's been a lot just to have somebody on staff or on call for something if it might come up still i'm a little bit concerned about that i'm fine with the l specifically say on this matter this matter in this matter we are pretty specific on price which is good i like that like i said i have concerned with a lot of the language in here so if we're if we get to the point where we're going to make any kind of motion or anything i would like to go through the language and maybe clean it up make it more specific as opposed to kind of in general with some maze in here and you know what if we get a guy that it sounds like if we get somebody and they no offense but just like you know us a lot of times all have separate opinions and sometimes we can agree and sometimes we can't so it's just where we're going to draw the line so those are those are some of my concerns especially if why can't we hire our own i mean to do you know we're having problems getting right now off the legislation getting written for farming legality so we have something we can do with that what that person can do can actually legally advise us i'm not sure if our attorneys are they're not hired to be our advisers can we legally hire an attorney to be an advisor just for counsel so i'd that's why i want to find out if we can legally hire as staff to do more work than just special because i'm sure we're staff we're not going to charge we're not first and then move on but for the being specific or at least narrow in the resolution you can't get any more specific than naming the dates of june service attorneys cannot serve to advise that counsel for a legal opinions and right of an independent legal opinion that could be presented to the courts if that if there was a conflict questions but at this point we have to let's put it in the scope here is basically when there is a conflict between the administration and the council and these issues that are presented are these are issues that have been in conflict so everything else same as usual there's you know corporation counsel is supposed to be serving both u of their capacity for just narrowing the scope to what is presented here in the resolution see opinions from corporation counsel i may not agree with what comes out of their own but for me personally it can be frustrating that you cannot depend on your own  legal staff to be able to feel that you're going to help to make things move and yet do we ever respect the feedback that we get from the corporation council so what i'm hearing is and you know i don't have a problem for us to putting this through it my problem is i think there needs to be more specifics like that's not allow would you know it's just to help us to put policies together and then have that go through corporation counsel for their signature or refuse our signature what or or function of the county i think sometimes that can get hairy for us coming from the from council side and cooperation council as far as it ministration and representation on behalf of the county as a whole you know we're all there to including cooperation council administration and us is to make sure that we're serving we're here to take care of the county which includes to supply every bit everything and everybody else so i don't have a problem with the tax dollars as far as us making that determination but we also pay tax dollars for legal in council services whether or not we should be able to retain a qualified  saw out of b n how are we going to accomplish what we're trying to pursue and you know it does get frustrating at times because it's just takes such a long time for us to finish a process or get things out there so that becomes real and we can implement implement what we're trying to legislate and still i think to you know we have our own opinions what should be and not necessarily respect what comes back to us from cooperation council so to me as we have this probably available for us i think sometimes we have to look at how do when do we trust the department that we also have the authority to approve serving into that position and if we don't then shame on us we'll even pushing that through and yes we've had our challenges and we still do without ministration on and these specific examples of issues but i would like to hope that you know we don't have to go to a corporation conses a lot i don't like but they say they most special counsel and they're right i'm just looking for something that can not be so long to the process as for us to do our work and i'm sorry from going on and on but  to start by apologizing for a misunderstanding on this issue of confidentiality the way i was explained it all the way i understood it was really a bit off so i council and others that i did make a mistake and i apologize for their arm but going back to the mere fact of what is our duty and what is the duties that are it and i think my work got on it but i think it's necessary i think there are times when we've been in a quandary as mrs greville as mentioned social guidelines would be really appreciative i can be honest there been times when i corporation coun i had our legislative attorney and i had a department head and i asked him one question all to give me a different answer and that is half it and i'm like wow how do we ever achieve anything but sometimes it's the way the situation is perceived by each individual you know attorneys like everyone else interprets what the law says and you know you guys all do a good job or not not like insurance i know there are parameters for which we all fall  are trying to accomplish do you have anything that you say i thank you mr victory and you have any suggestions as to how specific you'd like to tweet this it's sounds as though you know in my mind or only addressing understanding is our attorneys are licensed hawaii attorneys that passed the hawaii bar it's my understanding so for me if they've done that they can practice on this you tell me that i the license impressing the bard does not allow them to practice or if there is an employment condition that they cannot practice as employees of the council in their capacity as legislated what terms i think that would help us because my understanding is their license attorneys second the chairman i think without putting the core counsel i'm not in this predicament i think it's also important that th the report to their marriage was not to take action or even consider it that is a problem when what according to the law should be dealt with in a maybe  administration so again i point it out as facts of what has transpired in the past that we need to be at least aware and take into its proper role in our why we why we cannot rely on our in house attorneys my understanding is because corp council is the legal representative for both the council and the administration have mr chair since i brought the the question up so i would like to phrase it a little bit differently is can somebody can we can council hire somebody in o c us too handle the legal give us advice not represent the county in legal proceedings we give us advice and also look at proposed bills and resolutions the department corporation council as richard refused to sign so that they're talking about the two were guards that were i mean if we're going to hire you know hire somebody they can do all the sign for for mr carroll was saying that this this reza is a stopgap measure so we need to go further than that once we you know if it if so happen this resolution gets passed we need  you know look pass you know if if in fact there is an issue as to the some of these issues that were presented if it comes back there from the special counsel that in fact there is a contradiction between the opinions they were really going to need to figure out what is the next steps you know what is the bigger picture here when there's a conflict between the administration and the counsel i  i guess my question still falls back to the same old same question i started the whole conversation with is if we past this what does this resolve i guess is to go out and get a special corporation a special counsel to give us litigation and that's what this is all about and i know i know i do it no no no not this occasional mr white do you want to see before i have it and i legal advice from our own attorneys we have no choice but to go get special counsel as mr okama mentioned whenever there is a challenge between the counsel and the administration corp counsel is always going to represent the administration my feeling is that they do a very good job of representing the administration they do a very good job of representing the council most of the time and i kind of think we're making a much bigger issue out of this than that i'm trying to make because i'm just simply wanting to be in a place where we can get an answer to a question in a relatively short amount of time and to to mr couch as i thought about the firewall that that again for me doesn't quite work because we still have the issue of confidentiality  and there's been one example made clear to us when we were told that there was going to be a bifurcation within the department and that simply didn't happen but not going to i'm not going to get into that this is simply aimed at giving us the ability to get a second opinion in a row really quick fashion and move on and so you know if there needs to be more specificity i'm comfortable with that but just understand that this is not of it's not a big issue i think that we need to have the ability to get some of a given example and we've got the request for the executive session minutes as the head of the council i have no one i can turn to to get a second opinion on whether we need to give it you know give up the documents or not so as coun chair or as a committee chair there are times when you all will have a legal question and you'll ask or counsel there they will always be the go to  group this only gives us the ability to go and get a second opinion if in my view it's not something that i will do on my own i would do it with in concurrence with each other the subject matter chairs if there is if there's an issue in your area that you feel needs to be we need to get a second opinion on it and then we concurred then we'll go and get that second opinion but  to me this is these are issues that we deserve to get answers that we can depend on and we can only do so by hiring special counsel the seventy five thousand dollars is there as a as a as a fund that we can go to but i don't anticipate using anywhere near that so they way  but i was told that there was an opinion by corporation counsel during that time that supported linda lingle as it ministration for the appropriation of that purchase of that property i believe the council under okama have the resolution hiring a special counsel to question that authority or that opinion of the special care of the corporation counsel during that time to question it or at least give their that opinion special counsel was hired and then the special counsel had a contrary opinion and thereafter was brought forward to court for a judiciary determination and it was decided that the counsel was correct and the special counsel's opinion and so this made this may be very similar to the issues that we have before us we've got at least four of them that have questions opinion is correct or not it's as simple as that if a special counsel says hey a corporation counsel was correct in his opinion in their assessment all right let's move on let's move on because everything else that ha come before us has you know they've done a good job and we've basically are just looking at these very narrow issues and asking a second opinion and whether they come out  counsel that took it to a judiciary declaration but i don't know but we at this point in time i believe that there is justification to ask for special counsel for these specific items that are within the resolution and so my recommendation is to pass this out of committee today so that we can just start something you know in the new year without having a controversy let's just get this done and over with and start the new year fresh so if there's any other opinions i'm going to call for a  cobb and my question is what is the difference between legal adviser and chief legal advisor can we have our own not necessarily be the chief and final one but we can have somebody that can do it in my opinion but you know i'm not a lawyer so i don't know it's in the gutter you want to respond to that be legal representatives of the council meeting members i guess my question is is there a difference between chief legal advisor and legal adviser  ok well maybe that's why we need special c i was elected into office nobody knew that so if i miss you on this life side of my upper quadrant it's because i'm blind on that side ok and i apologize if i didn't see your hand up and i' allows their equivalent of o c s lawyers to represent them because we don't have that flexibility getting special counsel is the only way we can address  so i appreciate the mr couch as perspective he always has good points but the reason that i brought this forward is that there are a number of issues that i think we need to be able to to  get legal advice that we can but for lack of a better term to take to the bank because we get legal advice but we can't depend on that legal advice so that's unfortunate that we're in this situation but but again i want to point out that the vast majority of the advice that we get from core counsel we don't disagree with it's just a you know from time to time we're likely to have some differences and we need to be able to address them quickly so that we can move on and so that's the purpose of this reza thank you are there any other comments or questions from the members ok that at this time the chair will entertain a motion to recommend the adoption of the revised proposed resolution entire authorize in the employment of special counsel to advise and represent the council so much mr chairman i'll support the motion chairman for a couple of reasons one securing the special council as the title says is to give us some advice after that advice any action that will go forward will be determined by a minimum of six council members agreement and until those six members agree nothing goes forward and so it is still be  retained by the power of the council three its membership through a official vote and i would say that there in that discussion on the specific issue to make determine whether to take that face to action is th the appropriate time in place but i think at this point in time to be able to secure the advice prior to a decision is warranted in for me very responsible on our part just the chairman so it s the members to take that into consideration in making their decision thank you thank you mr white and i i just i appreciate mr holcombe up making that point clear that this hiring a special counsel is to get brief answers that there is no intent in here to use the information for anything beyond just our own information if if we decide to challenge something with the that the corporate soul has provided us that it would be done just you know on the collegial basis that we will present our side they present their side we come to some resolution that's where it ends because we've gotten we've gotten to two sides the two sides if they if they agree that we're you know when we're done this does not in my view put us in a position where this can result in any of these items being taken to court or anything beyond just a collegial discussion  i i'm more than happy to make that commitment that i'm not even sure that's necessary because if we're going to go you know total toll on something that's going to require another council for myself that it's difficult to win to receive a legal opinion from corporation counsel and then we have a council services that have done their research and then present something differently and so for me i find it wow council services did their research they've presented it to me and then i get a legal opinion from core counsel that says differently so then i research it and i i trying to be neutral find that the basis for the opinion from the deputy corp councils are flawed so i have no else where to turn because they won't sign off on that on the form in the galaxy so therefore we're stuck so these these issues that are just presented here is is the only issues that mentioned i i'm a little uncomfortable with the looseness of this so and some of the implications and some of the wording here so just i'll just go on the record i would like to make a motion to remove the word frequent in the very first whereas if anybody is willing to follow that sorry i moved to a man the resolution to remove the word frequent from the first whereas or says whereas the council signed a frequent need for independent legal advice  the directive the directive we have a lot i don't know that that we might be wasting our money saying but i say why not you get a lot of council made the law where you are in the whereas on june eighteenth two thousand everybody it may be my interpretations wrongly which is fine then we can leave that in or but it's pretty clear to me that that it says that all count communication is the council from department head shall be made through the mare and we also have an item in one of the committees i have to take a look and see what as i'm pretty sure it's been there for three years so to to fix this somehow i think i actually attorney that would verify that you know that we have an opinion from corporation counsel but i believe that on when i requested further briefing on it it was p to require council members to have separate council member should be treated the same as can normal public citizens so to to make council members go through this routing according to this opinion so my my question is why wasn't that researched why did why did i have to do that you know so i mean other than looking at the basic law in front of us shouldn't we be looking at other you know state law federal law to see whether in fact this mare's directive is legit so i would like a special counsel to do it for on briefing of this mayor and any other further well now and i mean i'll make a motion to remove those to the the whereas i want to move to remove the work under the whereas on june eighteenth that will appoint and under need to be resolved three a remove that i move that we remove that you want to remove the whereas the the june eighteenth to be a bullet point on june eighteenth that whereas just that that bullet point underneath that whereas and if that subsequently so you have to take out under the b it resolve three take that out so basically that's not going to be requested by the special counsel that's why i was in it i need to get a second because everybody understand the motion the motion is to remove the the language regarding the mayor's employee communications directive basically by deleting that that removes that issue for us to request special counsel to brief or give an opinion is there a second seeing nine motion fails in the last one like i mentioned i had three that such matter the be it resolved that such matters are not may include because in my opinion may occlude is a wide open for a bunch of other things that may come up and if you if you are sincere in it being specific then number three should say that may and substitute our delete may include delete may include and so it would read number three would be amended to this is mr couch is motion to men number three to read as follows that such matters are color include either one i'm fine with or i take out the word me taking it so it would be amended to your motion mr couch as motion is to remove the word may in the be it resolved number three that such matters the issue of confidentiality came up and i think it's you know that's one that we've got to it in my view we've got to address and and i think because we don't have any other option when there are there are differences between opinions from the core counsel and and our attorneys i think it's important for this to be somewhat open and again this is just for the initial answers not for action because action can't be taken with that a much larger bucket of money than this so that any kind of action that w be taken is going to have to come back to council for approval so again this is this is just to give us the ability to going to jump in on a relatively quick basis so i can support that amendment i think it's important that we have that ability because we and until we do a charter amendment or something to allow our attorneys to act in the same fashion that sitting kind of on a little allows their staff attorneys to act i think we need to have that flexibility just for a quick resolution of what may be very simple that which is fine i understand that but then let's represent this as an open ended as opposed to specific the chair of you know chair you said this is a specific our arms around and get an opinion whether or not there is you know are we able to expect confidential or not so  so are you still behind your emotion and i'm sure yes then we can add that i mean we can make him another motion to add that as another item i'm fine for if we want to make it open ended i just want to i mean it's sounds like it's your wish to make it these items well i mean it sounds like you know it if that is one of the issues that mr white is concerned about as the chair of our right to counsel i would be open that yeah i'd be open to that is as well but if this motion fails and we don't have to add it in because everything is open or ok so any further discussion of those in favor of it let me restate mr get the chair will entertain a motion actually it's the adoption of the revised proposed resolution entitled authorizing the employment of special counsel to advise and represent the council on certain eyes one no emotion cares ok so this will thank you members this will conclude today's meeting on have a very merry christmas and i will see you next year  community media you're watching fifty three green government and public affairs