Dear Editor:
I’ve learned that there have been many inquiries regarding the legal costs to the Township of Whitewater Region with respect to the dog tag court case. Reading the article recently published in both the Whitewater News as well as the Eganville Leader regarding “WW Legal Costs to Taxpayers”, there certainly appears to be some serious accounting questions with the figures now presented by Chief Administrative Officer Christine Fitzsimons.
Your article, as quoted from the council package stated: “The total of the legal expenses is $15,436.74. The breakdown saw $2,173.96 spent in 2013; $1,982.05 in 2014; $6,460.8 in 2015 and $4,819.92 in 2016.”
With respect to the price of $2,173.96 for all of 2013, the CAO at a council meeting on January 22, 2014, quite emphatically reported the figure of $3,564.52 for legal costs incurred against the municipality for actions they brought against Garry Burns and John Cull. This information she read from a memo dated November 18, 2013 from former Treasurer Annette Mantifel that was included in the council package. Furthermore, this figure of $3,564.00 was also quoted in the Eganville Leader in February 2014.
It should also be noted, there were still two additional court appearances in 2013 which I presume would certainly increase the cost of legal fees over and above the amount of $3,564.00 initially reported on November 18th.
Why did the CAO report a considerably lower figure for the year 2013 in this latest accounting? If this was accurate accounting, should the two figures for the year 2013 reported on Jan. 22, 2014 and now recently in 2016 be, at the very least, the same or slightly higher?
With regards to the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, there were still an additional 19 court appearances that included three judicial pre-trials with a minimum of at least two hours per trial. The final court appearance, itself, was five to six hours in length. Plus, there were times the township had two lawyers representing them at some of these appearances.
In addition to the many court appearances, there would still be costs for researching and preparing material for court, travel/mileage, phone calls/consultations, correspondences, reports, faxes, etc.
Assuming the township was charged 50 percent of costs for each individual charged because their cases were heard at the same time for every court appearance, these figures quoted by the CAO are questionable, in my opinion, especially since they appear to have been reduced substantially in the year 2013 as mentioned above.
Anyone who has had any experience with lawyers and legal fees know quite well, their fees do not come cheaply.
Donna Burns
Resident – Whitewater Township
