Title
County Counsel recommending the Board:
1) Approve the Billing Rates for County Counsel attorneys to invoice outside entities; and
2) Adopt and authorize the Chair to sign Resolution 069-2017 setting forth those rates.
FUNDING: Reimbursement to County.
Body
DEPARTMENT RECOMMENDATION
Reason for Recommendation:
This recommendation will allow County Counsel to more fully recover its costs incurred in defending the County from challenges to development project approvals and, by utilizing a blended rate schedule, will streamline the process for recovery of such costs.
DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
A standard condition of approval imposed on development projects requires the developer to defend and indemnify the County for any actions challenging the County's approval of the project. In the past, if a project approval was challenged, the County would tender the defense of the action to the developer and, upon the developer's acceptance of the defense, retain outside counsel to represent the County's interests in the action. In some circumstances, where the County's and developer's interests were not in conflict, the County and developer would be represented by the same attorney. In either case, the cost of such outside counsel would be borne by the developer pursuant to their obligation to defend and indemnify the County.
Since the County Counsel's office is now fully staffed, we have refrained from retaining outside counsel in such matters and, instead, have been using in-house attorneys to defend the County in challenges to development project approvals. Pursuant to the above-referenced defense and indemnify condition, the developer is obligated to reimburse the County for its costs in defending such matters, including costs incurred by the County Counsel's office. Having attorneys in the County Counsel's office represent the County is also more cost-effective for the developer because the rates charged by the County Counsel's office are generally well b...
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