With so many residents angry over the recent environmental tax bill we’ve been mailed, I decided to poke my head into the Town budget in search of any expenditure that has gotten away from the Town Council’s control.

Our Legal Services budget item caught my eye because a budget number was originally proposed, then revised drastically upward, and then the Council cut a check significantly higher yet. This, essentially, is Town Attorney Andrew McGuire’s paycheck.

This prompted me to look into McGuire’s contract, to see whether he had a provision that allowed him to turn in a bill significantly higher than his budget. Somehow, I wasn’t able to find his contract among the dozens that the Town has signed with other providers.

Surely McGuire has a contract! After all, he is the most expensive individual contract worker our Town pays. Certainly his duties, responsibilities and pay are ironclad in writing!

But then I thought, perhaps McGuire’s sterling record in the courts is worth his blown-out budget.

Nope. Searching through court documents, when it comes to representing Fountain Hills in front of a judge, McGuire is essentially the Washington Generals to everyone else’s Harlem Globetrotters.

Some of the judgments against our Town are painful, embarrassing and – here’s a fact anyone unhappy about our new environmental tax should note – very expensive.

It’s time for our Town Council to take back control. It’s time for McGuire to go.

Editor’s note: Andrew McGuire is not under contract with the Town of Fountain Hills. He works for Gust Rosenfeld, the law firm with which the town has a “letter of engagement.” Also, McGuire does not represent the town in court.