Agenda Item No. 2
CITY OF YUCAIPA
AGENDA REPORT
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council
Honorable Successor Agency Chairperson and Board Members Honorable Housing Authority Chairperson and Commissioners FROM: Jennifer Crawford, Acting City Manage
Chris Mann, Consultant
FOR: Special City Council, Successor Agency and Housing Authority Meeting of January 30, 2023
SUBJECT: Approval of a Legal Services Agreement with Cole Huber LLP (Continued from January 23, 2023)
RECOMMENDATION:
That the City Council Authorize the Mayor to Execute the Legal Services Agreement with Cole Huber LLP.
DISCUSSION:
On January 9, 2023, the City Council voted 5-0 to appoint Steven Graham of Cole Huber LLP as City Attorney effective that evening. Steven Graham is a partner with Cole Huber LLP and he currently serves as the City Attorney for the cities of Canyon Lake, Hemet, and Indio. The City of Yucaipa will be supported by Cole Huber's team of experienced advisory and litigation attorneys.
The City Council held a special closed session meeting on January 23, 2023, to negotiate the final terms and conditions of the Legal Services Agreement with Cole Huber LLP. At this meeting, the City Council voted to continue this item. Based on Council action, a special closed session meeting will be held on January 30, 2023, to negotiate the final terms and conditions of the Legal Services Agreement with Cole Huber LLP.
It is anticipated that Cole Huber LLP will offer the City of Yucaipa the same pricing and inclusive retainer model that formed the basis of the firm's recent successful proposal to the City of Indio, where Cole Huber LLP was selected from fourteen firms to replace Richards, Watson & Gershon (thus allowing the City of Yucaipa to "piggyback" off of the pricing achieved by the City of Indio).
The inclusive retainer model has the City pay a fixed monthly amount for legal services regardless of the actual hours utilized in any given month. The amount is based on an estimate of average legal services utilized over the course of a year. This model has been successfully used at the firm's other Inland Empire clients for years and allows the City to budget the City Attorney's Office like most other City departments.
4 The final terms and form of the agreement will be publicly available following the negotiation during open session.
FISCAL I"CT:
The Fiscal Year 2022/2023 Adopted Budget includes $272,000 for professional legal services.
Invoices for legal services rendered through November 2022 have been received and reflect fees based on hourly rates by service type multiplied by hours incurred. Utilizing the October invoice for sampling, the blended hourly rate calculates to $220/hour. Applying the estimated blended rate to each month, the estimated hours incurred per month are 109 on average. Extending these estimates over the fiscal year reflects that annualized charges ($288,000) are tracking slightly over the budget ($275,000). The fiscal impact of this item will be product of changes in the assumed hours per month and the blended hourly rate.