City budgets $50,000 for outside legal counsel to defend Open Meeting Act lawsuit

It could be worse: According to the city’s agreement with McAfee & Taft, the city acknowledges that the maximum rate of $250 an hour for partners’ services — as well as the lower fees charged for the work of associates and paralegals — “reflect a significant government discount.”

The agreement notes that the partner assigned to the case would normally bill $475 per hour, and sets an hourly rate of not more than $225 for associates’ work and not more than $105 an hour for paralegal services.

The law firm was hired in the first week of April to represent the city and three city councilors — Lori Decter Wright, Laura Bellis and Vanessa Hall-Harper — in a lawsuit filed against them by the Rev. Freeman Culver alleging violations of the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act.

Since Councilor Grant Miller was involved in researching and drafting the lawsuit against the city, and the City Attorney’s Office is charged with representing the City Council and councilors, rules of professional responsibility precluded the City Attorney’s Office from handling the case, a city spokesperson said Friday.

Culver and his attorney, Ronald Durbin, have filed a second lawsuit alleging that Mayor G.T. Bynum, City Attorney Jack Blair, City Hall security and other city personnel violated the state’s Open Records Act by not providing prompt access to public records. However, the defendants in the case have not been served and no outside legal counsel has been hired for the case.

The city has budgeted $50,000 for the law firm’s services, according to the agreement, but the contract allows for McAfee & Taft to submit an amended budget should it become likely that its fees will exceed $50,000.

As of Friday, the city had not received a bill from McAfee & Taft.

The turmoil at City Hall began on March 22 when Miller filed an open records request seeking text messages sent among Wright, Bellis and Hall-Harper during a council committee meeting.

During the meeting, Miller, who has questioned the need for providing more city funding for reconstruction of Gilcrease Museum, asked whether it would make more sense to spend the $10 million allocated for the project in Improve Our Tulsa 3 on housing for the homeless instead.

According to the text messages released in response to the open records request, Wright texted Bellis and Hall-Harper, “10M Gilcrease $ for housing. Miller is ridiculous.”

Bellis responded, “RIDICULOUS”; Hall-Harper did not respond.

Miller, who works for Durbin’s law firm, is not a party to the lawsuits but did promote the press conference announcing the initial one. He has also shared his views about the case on social media

The lawsuits are pending, but the fallout from the incident continues to percolate throughout the council.

During a discussion Wednesday regarding placing restrictions on councilors’ use of electronic communications during public meetings, Bellis noted that Miller — who was seated across the conference table from her — had just written down that she had been texting during the meeting.

“Part of me doesn’t, just for transparency’s sake, doesn’t feel comfortable continuing to talk about this piece (of the proposed policies) while we are in this like active litigation space and while during this council meeting someone wrote down the time that they saw me texting,” Bellis said. “I literally don’t feel comfortable and honestly feel bullied and would prefer — can we wait until we are on the other side of some of our intra-council ... conflicts to address this?”

When it came time for Miller to speak, he said he wrote down the time it appeared to him that Bellis was “ texting about something, a conversation that was occurring at the table at that time.”

“So I did write that down, and I will continue to point it out when I think that people are discussing city business privately amongst themselves while we have a quorum of the council present within a meeting,” Miller said. “So I won’t stop pointing that out.”