Rio Arriba County paid private attorney Ted Trujillo’s law firm $276,580 in 2008 under a missing contract.
Trujillo’s fees represented the majority of the $295,163 the County spent on legal services in 2008, down from $345,000 in 2007 and $298,885 in 2006, County records show.
Trujillo and his son, Adan, represent the County in litigation and advise County officials on almost all legal matters, including everything from the planned oil and gas ordinance to responses to public records requests.
But the firm’s 2001 contract with the County, set to expire sometime this year, is missing.
County Grants and Contracts Administrator Phillip Morfin repeatedly said in February he was unable to locate the contract. County Manager Lorenzo Valdez initially said in February Trujillo would provide a copy of the contract, but subsequently reported that Trujillo had only been able to locate a 2003 amendment to the contract.
“It’s crazy,” Valdez said. “Ted (Trujillo) thought he had it. But we need to go out to bid for attorney services anyway.”
Trujillo did not return calls for comment on the missing contract.
Trujillo has worked for the County under a contract with his former law partner Dennis Luchetti since 2001, County documents state. In 2003, after Luchetti’s death, Trujillo assumed the contract, Valdez said. The 2003 contract amendment shows that Trujillo is paid $100 an hour and has the option of hiring additional law firms for assistance.
The 2003 contract amendment does not state when the contract ends. But according to state procurement law, professional services contracts can be extended for up to eight years, after which time the County has to request new bids.
The County therefore must go out to bid on its legal services contract this year. If the missing contract was dated before March 2001, the County would be in violation of state procurement law.
The County Commission has not yet been approached about going out for a request for proposals for a new attorney contract, Commissioner Alfredo Montoya said.
Nickel and Dimed?
The law firms bill the County using a tenths-of-an-hour system. Each time any attorney does anything related to the County — however trivial the task — they bill the County based on this system.
On several occasions, Trujillo’s firm charged the County $30 (billed as 3/10ths of an hour or 18 minutes) for reading brief, single-page open records requests, County records show.
Trujillo billed the County Oct. 1, 2008, for 24 minutes ($40) when he “received and reviewed 3 attachments from (County Manager) Lorenzo (Valdez) on ONRW issues,” a reference to Governor Richardson’s proposed state Outstanding Natural Resource Waters rules, County documents show. More typically, Trujillo charges the County $20 (12 minutes) for “receiving and reviewing” an email message, County records state.
Most of the work listed in the Trujillo firm’s monthly billing statements to the County is vague. For example, on Oct. 2, 2008, Trujillo billed the County $30 for a phone call from County Human Resources Director Jessica Madrid regarding “personnel issues.”
The next day, Trujillo charged the County $30 to review a fax from the County clerk regarding “a complaint” and $130 for a conversation with County Assistant Manager Tomas Campos regarding “several pending county matters including an on-going trial, grievances and projects.”
Trujillo’s firm also subcontracts several other law firms for part-time assistance on County work, County records show.
The County paid Santa Fe-based Rubin Katz Law Firm $55,314 in 2008. While fees vary depending on which of the firm’s attorneys does County work, Katz charges the County rates up to $165 an hour.
The Katz and Trujillo’s firm both spent considerable resources working on the County’s legal battles related to a gas and oil moratorium it enacted last April.
The Katz law firm enjoyed a windfall in July and August, when it conducted legal research for the County’s oil and gas moratorium and ordinance. In August, for example, the Katz firm billed the County $13,156 for attorney Frank Herdman’s work on a drilling company’s lawsuit against the County.
In October, the Trujillo firm charged the County $160 to review the first section of a Santa Fe County oil and gas ordinance, part of nearly $11,000 the firm billed the County Planning and Zoning Department in 2008. The Department is in charge of writing the County’s drilling regulations.
A December 2008 invoice from the Katz firm includes $2,469 for Herdman’s preparation, “formatting,” and review of the Rio Arriba ordinance, reviewing the Santa Fe County oil and gas ordinance as a model for the County ordinance and meeting with County Planning and Zoning Director Gabriel Boyle and Adan Trujillo.
The Rio Arriba County ordinance is still only in draft form, and the County has twice extended its moratorium on oil and gas drilling to give the Boyle and the lawyers more time to finish the ordinance.
Attorney Ocean Munds-Dry, who works for the oil industry, said that attorneys working for the County did much more than merely review the Santa Fe ordinance.
“Entire passages were cut and pasted from the Santa Fe ordinance,” Munds-Dry said. “They were taken whole-cloth.”
County-paid attorneys may have been taking crib notes from the wrong ordinance, however. Santa Fe County’s gas and oil ordinance is so restrictive that it effectively prohibits drilling and exploration, County Commissioner Alfredo Montoya and Munds-Dry agreed. Rio Arriba Commissioners have consistently said that a permanent halt to new drilling in the County is not their goal.
County Planning and Zoning staff started examining other, less restrictive county ordinances as a result.
“We’re borrowing from all over,” Montoya said. “We borrowed not only from Santa Fe but a number of other sources that have addressed this before us, like La Plata County, Colo. We’re customizing the ordinance to fit us, because Santa Fe is completely anti-gas and oil, almost prohibits any drilling. Our ordinance is not supposed to turn out that way.”
Montoya said the County’s attorney bills were reasonable.
“The legal bills back in 1993 were close to $300,000, and we weren’t dealing with cases nearly as complicated as what we face now,” Montoya said. “Last year we had almost a whole year of battling with gas and oil. There were cases that were quite involved. I’ve concluded that’s just the price of trying to maintain our quality of life in our county. Trujillo’s firm has saved us a lot of money in the long run.”
County Planning and Zoning Director Gabriel Boyle could not be reached for comment. Calls to all of the County’s law firms were not returned.