The taxpayers in Huntington Beach are getting gouged on legal costs.

By Ron Davis

Over the past couple of years, and this year, Huntington Beach should have paid $3.6m for legal services in the city of Huntington Beach. We will actually pay $11.4M, or almost $8M too much.

Cities, whether that's Fountain Valley, Westminster, or Huntington Beach, all demand and require about the same basic and general legal services. Obviously, cities like HB, who are larger, require more of the same services. But all of the cities have redevelopment agencies, planning departments, city councils, police and fire departments, traffic accidents, and so forth, which present similar legal issues.

Fountain Valley, our next door neighbor, has a population a little more than 1/4th of ours, a land area 1/3rd ours, and a general fund about 1/4th our general fund. Given Fountain Valley's proximity to us and the similarity of legal issues, it is fair to look at what Fountain Valley spends for its total legal services, adjust that number for population and size differences by multiplying Fountain Valley's annual legal costs by four, and compare that number to what the citizens of Huntington Beach pay for all legal services.

Over the past couple of years, and for the next year, FV's total legal expense is running about $260,000 per year. Therefore, Huntington Beach, being 4 times larger should spend about 4 times more, or about $1.2 million, plus or minus a couple hundred thousand.

What does the office actually spend? Almost $4 million a year. That's more than $2.5 million over what the taxpayers in Huntington Beach should be spending. The numbers from Westminster also confirm this analysis. Over three years that's about $7.5 million of wasted taxpayer dollars. Wasted dollars that could have and should have been used providing senior services, keeping the library open, providing police and fire services, and filling your potholes, rather than filling the pockets of expensive outside attorneys.

During the course of this campaign, you'll see that those outside attorney's who benefit by the City Attorney's waste, are none too happy with my promise to eliminate them and the waste.

You can't save or redirect that wasted money to a more useful purpose, unless you vote for someone who will. I will. And that is my commitment to you.