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Southampton Village Hall. BRENDAN J. O'REILLY
The Southampton Village Board increased the village’s budget for legal expenses by $250,000 last month after blowing well past the original budgeted amount of $225,000 — by $138,685 — with four months still to go in the fiscal year.
At an often contentious board meeting on January 24, Deputy Mayor Gina Arresta questioned why Mayor Jesse Warren was copying the village attorney on emails about routine village business and operations — even CC’ing the attorney on exchanges about arranging for Santa Claus to land in the village in a helicopter. The village is billed for the attorney’s time each time he reads an email from a village official.
Warren pushed back this week on the assertion that his brief emails are responsible for the village’s mounting legal costs. He pointed to the village trustees’ phone calls and meetings with attorneys, particularly the village’s outside labor counsel, as much bigger contributors to the ballooning line item.
Warren said his goal is to work together with the trustees to get things done, as the taxpayers want them to do, but that he had to respond to the notion that his emails are why legal expenses have gone over budget by $250,000.
A review of the village’s legal expenditures since 2017 reveals that costs have skyrocketed, and the reasons are varied.
In the 2017-18 fiscal year, the village budgeted $168,500 for legal costs and spent just $147,146. In the two years that follow, legal costs were slightly lower.
But in 2020-21, the village spent $284,282 after starting out with an appropriation of $225,000. And in 2021-22, the village spent $313,204 after again initially appropriating $225,000.
The legal budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year now stands at $475,000 — and it still may not be enough as bills continue to roll in.
Warren noted that the village is getting higher bills from its labor counsel, Vincent Toomey, compared to the past few years. According to a transaction report from the village, Toomey’s firm has billed $91,809 so far for work in this fiscal year.
Toomey, who has been the village’s labor counsel since the early 1990s, and does the same work for most of the municipalities on the South Fork, said on Monday that his number of hours worked for the village has gone up recently because union contracts have come up for negotiation — contracts with the Civil Service Employees Association, and the Police Radio Operators Benevolent Association, both came up at the same time — and he is handling more employee discipline cases.
Toomey said that though he does get calls from village trustees occasionally, that is not why his bills have been higher lately. “If I were to break down a bill, that would be a really small component,” he said.
Toomey also noted that his firm agreed to serve the village’s police chief search committee at no cost. That took an “extreme” number of hours, he said, exceeding $35,000 in billing hours — but he did not charge.
When he agreed to take on the assignment pro bono, he said he did not anticipate how long it would take. “I thought it would take a couple of weeks or a month,” he said. “It went on for quite a long time.”
Choosing a police chief is among the most important decisions a village makes, Toomey said, adding, “I wanted to make sure they got it right.”
The committee was formed in August 2021, but after more than a year, its work was not fruitful. In December 2022, the Village Board voted, 4-1, with Warren dissenting, to offer the chief’s post to Suffolk County Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Carter. He initially accepted the offer but then declined after Warren was publicly critical of the choice.
Toomey said that once Carter was appointed, the committee’s work was done — and he resumed billing.
The trustees invited Toomey to speak at the Village Board’s January 12 meeting, where he defended the search and selection process and the contract offered to Carter from the mayor’s criticism.
“If something has to be said, then you have an ethical obligation … to answer questions that the trustees pose,” Toomey said on Monday, later adding, “The hardest thing being a lawyer is telling a client things they don’t want to hear.”
Aside from contract negotiations, Toomey has worked on a number of disciplinary matters involving village employees, including a recent matter in which the hearing officer recommended an employee be dismissed.
Toomey sometimes works with a prosecutor, Richard Zuckerman of Lamb & Barnosky LLP, on disciplinary cases. The village has paid Lamb & Barnosky LLP $59,855 this fiscal year.
Other legals bills come from the attorneys who serve as counsel to the village’s land use boards, including the Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals and Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation. Sometimes these boards’ decisions are the subject of lawsuits, adding to the village’s legal costs.
Warren suggested that the board’s legal costs have risen since Trustee Bill Manger joined the board in July 2022.
Manger said this week that costs associated with the village attorney only rose starting in October 2022. That’s the month that Andrew Preston replaced Kenneth Gray in the village attorney’s seat in the Village Board room. Both are from the law firm Bee Ready Law.
As for other costs, Manger said he has been helping with CSEA and PROBA negotiations and has been working to oppose Liberty Gardens, a 60-unit development proposed on County Road 39 next to the village border.
He’s worked with the village attorney to draft responses to Southampton Town and Suffolk County regarding Liberty Gardens, he said, calling it money well spent.
“There has been a lot going in terms of legal activity in the village recently, that is true … but I think it is the mayor that probably uses the attorneys more than the trustees do,” Manger said. “I mean, I don’t CC the attorneys on emails that I send the administrator.”
He also noted that the trustees have had legal questions concerning Village Administrator Charlene Kagel-Betts’s lawsuit against the mayor and the village. Filed last month, the lawsuit alleges Warren discriminated against her and created a hostile work environment — though Warren says an investigator hired by the village found that no such discrimination occurred.
Arresta said on Monday that her main concern is the emails Warren copies to the village attorney. She said a series of emails regarding a plan to have a helicopter land in the village with Santa Claus led to a bill of $937.50. “Why is the village attorney being CC’ed on everyday operations in the village? He has no say in that,” she said.
She said that when she has an issue, she speaks with the village administrator first, and suggested that the village adopt a policy that legal questions go through the administrator to reduce the number of communications with the village attorney. She added that when she joined the board in 2020, it was found that village officials were calling the village attorney, but have since been told they must go through the administrator.
Another concern Arresta raised is the mayor asking the village attorney to draft legislation for local laws before the discussing the proposals with the trustees and getting their feedback on the ideas.
