ATTORNEY’S FEES: The Village Council Is Spending Like A Drunken Sailor
The Village Council has spent $19, 258.49 paid to one attorney in the first six months of 2025. Yes, the first six months of 2025.
There have been no publicly known lawsuits against the Village or claims against the Village that have been made public or code enforcement tickets issued requiring legal representation in court, and no complex questions of law to be answered. At the time of this writing the Village Council will have spent considerably more. That additional amount hasn’t been made public at this time. And there appears to be no end in sight.
They have spent our money, our tax money, at the rate of $300.00 per hour paid to an attorney from Vicksburg after our former law firm quit following the November election. That law firm charged much less and specializes in representing local governments often lecturing on the subject. The Vicksburg attorney hired by the Council is the brother of Bruce Rolfe, the former owner and now reporter for the Climax Crescent. That relationship could not possibly have escaped the notice of Bill Lewis and Denise Pyle who were outspoken in favor of the hiring. No, that doesn’t create an impropriety, but it doesn’t hurt in getting favorable coverage for the Council.
What have we gotten for our money? Not much of value to the citizens of the Village. This will be discussed in a later post. The money has bought us unnecessary bureaucracy and the protection of Bill Lewis’s personal interests in keeping both jobs as Library Director and Village President. For the uninitiated, Michigan law prohibits anyone from occupying incompatible public offices. MCL Sec. 15.181(b)(iii). Incompatible public offices are ones in which performing the duties of one office results in a breach of duty of another office.
What is spending money like a drunken sailor? It’s spending money freely and carelessly leading to financial difficulties later. And you know that when governments have financial difficulties, they raise taxes. Of course, the people that spent the money, the Council members in this case, will not be responsible to pay it back. It’s just gone! Mostly, what we’ve gotten for our money is protection of Bill Lewis’s personal interests – read that income and position – as Village President and Library Director, and bureaucracy. Our community will be poorer for it.
*******
