St. Pete Beach, Florida --It is a small beach community of about 10,000 people where neighbors come together for good causes, but can't come together on how the city should be managed.
Two years ago Council Member Linda Chaney got into a verbal sparring match as she asked the city attorney whose plan was it to sue citizens.
Attorney Ken Weiss, who represents those opposed to development in the city, says it has been an issue that has percolating for quite some time.
Weiss has been involved in several of the lawsuits as the city and citizens often end up in court and he says the city is spending too much money on legal fees.
Weiss says he started looking through the city attorney bill and tried to see what was in the actual charges and what's in the retainer agreement.
Under the retainer agreement city attorney Mike Davis is paid $5,000 a month to act as the part time city attorney. However, because of the lawsuits citizens have filed against the city and the city has filed against citizens, Davis has to call in partners from his law firm, Bryant, Miller and Olive, which increase expenses.
St. Pete Beach City Manager Mike Bonfield says the city tries to keep that to a minimum, but there are times when they are needed and that is an expense the city has to incur.
Bonfield says because of the acrimony in the city where people sometime yell at council meeting they are appalled by the way it is run it leads to lawsuits and increased expenses which have skyrocketed.
According to Bonfield, you can try and control costs, but your costs are dictated by the opponents, by the other side.
But Weiss says the city is allowing the law firm to bill tax payers for money it doesn't deserve. For example, the retainer agreement does not say attorneys should get their hourly rate for travel, but the firm charges $205 an hour in addition to the cost of air fare when attorney's travel from offices in Miami and Tallahassee.
Weiss says when lawyers travel from the Miami office to the area it is $615 dollars to get them here and then they charge three hours going back.
In addition, Weiss says the out of town attorneys charge for everything. He says some of the strange things include a lawyer charging $600 dollars to fly here, getting paid $205 an hour and then charging the city $2.10 for a bottle of water and $1.00 for an apple they buy at the airport. He says there is no concern for the taxpayer.
Bonfield says he thinks it would be typical if you're hiring an attorney from outside the area they're not going to spend the day getting here and not charge you for it.
But the previous city attorney, who traveled from Cape Corral, only charged mileage not an hourly rate. Weiss is also upset with added hourly charges that are supposed to be covered by the $5,000 a month fee.
He says the attorneys aren't paying much attention to the retainer agreement. He showed us charges for preparation ordinances attending planning meetings which are supposed to be covered by the retainer.
Bonfield says those added charges only come when the firm is doing extra work at those meeting because of potential litigation
However, when we pointed out the term potential litigation could be loosely interpreted from a firm that is getting $ 5000 a month, Benfield agreed it could be, it could be'
But regardless of which side you think is right or which side you think is wrong the real losers are the citizens of St Pete Beach, who have not dog in the fight and just enjoy living in the city, because their legal bills are about 4 times higher than they should be for a city of this size.
Bonfield says he thinks that is unfortunate, but he doesn't know what the alternative.
Not only is it unfortunate, it is a runaway legal expense of more than $1.1 million as those who are for development and those who are against it have turned St. Pete Beach into litigation city.
Mike Deeson