Woodstock Legal Actions

Just how many legal actions is Woodstock involved in? What's the breakdown of legal fees paid by the City of Woodstock? What categories and how many dollars?

Every business tracks its legal exposure and the expense of that exposure? Is the City of Woodstock - surely, a business - tracking this exposure and forecasting its probable expenses?

It is critical to forecast legal expenses and to determine just how much it is likely to cost to wage the battle, as well as the likelihood of winning. There are legal expenses, whether you win or lose. It's all a matter of degree.

The stewards of the money of Woodstock are the City Manager and the City Council. Just how much is discussed and decided in the Executive Sessions of the City Council - those closed sessions from which the public and the press are excluded. When does the public get an accounting of the decisions and the expense of those decisions?

It has come to my attention that on Thursday, June 26, at 10:00AM there will be another (!) meeting to discuss the employment/reinstatement of a female police dispatcher who was (wrongfully?) terminated two years ago. The information provided to me is that the City of Woodstock was ordered by a Federal arbitrator a year ago to put her back to work with full back pay for the year she was off.

When parties agree to arbitration, don't they agree to accept the decision of the arbitrator? Arbitration agreed-to is assumed to be fair and a less-expensive proceeding than an all-out court case.

So, what's wrong with this picture? If she was ordered back to work a year ago with full back pay - and she hasn't been back at work - now it looks like she is owed two years' back pay.

For a City that is facing a severe financial strain with expected reduced revenues, will we end up paying an employee for two years not to work? Why wasn't the direction of the Arbitrator accepted and followed? Is the case now that there is going to be an arbitration meeting about the arbitration meeting???

Is it time to begin questioning in great detail just how much Woodstock pays for legal advice? Who is doing the feasibility study to determine whether we might get more legal services for the same or less money? The City does that with the trucks and the salt it buys. Why not do it for the services it contracts.

More residents need to get involved in Woodstock government. Too few show up at City Council meetings. The only way for government to be Government of the People, for the People, by the People is for the PEOPLE to show up!