By Sherri James | Fountain Hills
At the June 17 meeting, I watched the town council reach new lows in leadership.
Five council members chose the law firm of Tim La Sota to become the new town attorney. This was done without legal advice because the current firm recused itself. During the RFP process, Councilman Skillicorn only attended the interview with the La Sota firm. Yet he made the motion and voted for La Sota without hesitation. Skillicorn said he looked up one other firm online and decided it was too liberal. Is this about the town’s attorney being well qualified or is it about being liberal or conservative?
Why didn’t council members recuse themselves who have professional and personal relationships with La Sota, as several do? La Sota is the firm that represented Skillicorn in a failed lawsuit against former Mayor Dickey and Councilpersons Kalivianakis, McMahon and Grzybowski. It's the same firm that represented Reclaim Our Town (ROT) in another failed lawsuit contesting improperly collected signature forms on the Target Center proposal.
And the new firm's attorney, who will actually sit at the dais, is none other than election-denier Jennifer Wright, recently terminated by the state AG. Remember, she was the signatory to the unsolicited offer to be Fountain Hills’ town attorney long before the Pierce Colman attorney, Aaron Arnson, resigned over alleged, unsubstantiated, claims of fraudulent billing practices initiated by Councilmember Earle.
Councilmembers Kalivianakis and McMahon rightly argued that the selection should be a firm with no ties to anyone on the dais and there was one firm that was clearly more qualified to take on the job. Instead, the others threw the town into murky waters, apparently not interested in giving the town a fresh, clean start.
Will LaSota be representing Skillicorn in his upcoming hit-and-run case?
Can this get any worse? Maybe. Probably.
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