Rolison vetoes council attempt to hire law firm

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POUGHKEEPSIE – Mayor Rob Rolison has vetoed a measure approved by the Poughkeepsie Common Council in September for the lawmaking body to hire a law firm from Long Island to provide legal opinions, rather than use the city’s staff of attorneys.

The mayor’s veto came on Thursday.

The council had previously sought to hire an attorney for $20,000.  Rolison vetoed that and the council failed to muster the votes for an override.  This time, the council sought to pay a law firm $25,000, causing Rolison to veto another measure to spend money during a fiscal crisis.

The mayor’s latest veto message says in part, “The resolution states only that the corporation counsel offered a legal opinion with which the Common Council disagrees, yet the opinion itself is not described, nor was it made a part of the record. We are left to connect the dots that the Corporation Counsel opined that I had the legal authority to veto resolution R20-68 earlier this month. Unable to gather the votes to override that action, the Council tries again, this time increasing the funding appropriation to $25,000, and claiming there is now a legal controversy requiring the engagement of another lawyer. Not only is this an obvious red herring, it is an abuse of power and at odds with the case law in this state which has been on the books since 1978.”

During the meeting to hire the law firm, Councilwoman Yvonne Flowers told Chairperson Sarah Salem that she had not received any information about the resolution or the law firm.  Salem responded that she had sent the information to Flowers via email.  Flowers indicated that no such email had been received.

A request to Salem for a copy of the email under the Freedom of Information Law was denied by Salem, saying that it is not subject to the law.  A FOIL request to Flowers seeking any emails on the subject from Salem led to the following response, “As I stated in the Council meeting, I don’t recall receiving such email and I have searched for it and could not find it.  Still waiting for Chairperson Salem to provide me with the copy.”




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