Hillsboro needs more lawyers, fewer firefighters (NOT!)

With all due respect to the taxpayer-funded city law director and the taxpayer-funded deputy law director, one thing is becoming apparent: Hillsboro taxpayers need to pay for more lawyers.

If not, one thing is abundantly clear: We are paying.

Forget about paying part-time, volunteer firefighters. Let's lay them off. Who needs 'em, after all? Aside from putting out fires and saving lives, really, what do they do?

(Please note that our John Tallieu sarcasm font was in play in the previous sentence.)

Hillsboro taxpayers currently pay for a law director and a deputy law director. The president of city council also is a lawyer, by the way, but his professional status has no bearing on this opinion. He is always welcome to offer his opinion on city government, as are all council members.

In less than five months, the Hillsboro city administration has added a $15,000 legal counsel expense to taxpayers with Ice Miller, LLP, and another heretofore unreported expense to the firm of Blaugrund, Herbert, Kessler, Miller, Myers & Postalakis, Inc., according to the city auditor.

Requests for public records related to the latter firm have been made.

As usual, calls to the mayor's office have not been returned. That's fine. We'll follow the money.

In the past quarter-century, there has been only one newspaper owner, publisher and editor who has reported on Highland County for more than 17 of those 25 years. And throughout all of those years, the primary objective has been to report the news fairly and accurately, with no entangling alliances. Such reporting has been accomplished through the tenures of six mayoral administrations and respective councils. My respect for all of them remains high. They earned it.

But from what a number of our readers are saying today, the elsewhere appearances of entangling alliances are apparent. I wouldn't know. And, as all of you know, it's not my habit to go looking for trouble. (Welcoming its arrival is another story.)

But I do know this: If the city of Hillsboro continues to seek more outside legal representation, it does have the appearance of a lack of trust in its law director and deputy law director.

That's too bad. Fred Beery is a good man. He deserves better. So do local taxpayers.

At some point, taxpayers really need to demand a better accountability of their money.

When any administration argument is to add lawyers and reduce firefighters, most reasonable minds would prefer firefighters. (My apologies to the late Roy Gabbert.)

Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.