The Augusta Commission should have learned its lesson with the tenure of Wayne Brown; but, apparently, they didn’t, and the city is now barreling towards Brown 2.0.
It is an old joke in legal circles that if an attorney just out of law school can’t make it in private practice, they can always apply for a municipality position.
That said, the only finalist to prove himself vastly unfit for the position is current deputy city attorney Sam Meller, who in the case of The Augusta Press et al. v. City of Augusta, made it clear that he did not understand the law to an extent that that Brown had to step in and bail him out in open court.
At the last commission meeting, Meller began furiously shuffling papers and got visibly flustered responding to simple questions about the city code in regards the Historic Preservation Commission. After reading the code verbatim, Meller began contradicting himself, first telling the body they had the final say and then flip-flopping and stating the HPC could file suit against a taxpayer without the commission’s consent.
It doesn’t appear that Meller can be concise even about a city ordinance that is written in English, not Latin.
This bizarre exchange happened merely an hour after his job interview with commissioners where he proclaimed getting promoted to general counsel would be “the honor of a lifetime.”
Meanwhile, Jim Plunkett and John Manton of Plunkett, Hamilton, Manton & Graves, LLP, in their capacity as outside attorneys, have done an excellent job and actually saved the city money in the long run.
These two seasoned attorneys have demonstrated that they work well with City Administrator Tameka Allen and proved their mettle helping navigate the myriad of legal issues surrounding the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene.
Why hire a general counsel who is only going to sub the work out to the Plunkett firm when we can cut out the middleman and hire the Plunkett firm.
It is the conventional wisdom, according to some commissioners, that an inhouse attorney will work at the pleasure of the commission and be their advocate, when, as we saw with Brown, the exact opposite often happens. The commission ends up with an unelected public servant who holds the reins of power, by virtue of their legal advice becoming de facto law.
For a time, Brown was the most powerful man in Augusta government, and his poorly reasoned legal advice along with his penchant for pitting commissioners against one another, cost the city dearly on more than one occasion.
We agree with outspoken Commissioner Catherine Smith-Rice, who has stated publicly, “We shouldn’t try to fix what isn’t broken.” That is exactly how her iconic father, the late Commissioner Grady Smith, the “lion of the commission,” would have phrased it.
The commission would be far better served to fill the outstanding lower-tier department head positions that remain empty, rather than starting from scratch with a new inhouse legal department.
There is nothing in the city charter that mandates the city hire a general counsel, so we urge them to keep what is a tried and true benefit to the city and make the temporary outside arrangement with Plunkett, Hamilton, Manton & Graves, LLP permanent.
