Attorney Fees Are "Sensitive" Alright!

The Martin Chronicles watched malfeasant Mayor Mike Martin pull his usual flim-flam routine at this week's Council meeting. Martin feebly-and dishonestly-tried to explain that Villa Hills so-called "financial reports" are being redacted-(READ: "misrepresented")-because some of the information contained in them is "sensitive".

Seriously? Martin really believes that the taxpayers of Villa Hills don't have the absolute right to see every single dime of their money Martin is squandering? That's a ridiculous assertion that serves as more evidence of Martin's rampant mismanagement and corruption.

Everyone who is paying attention knows that Martin and his council cronies are simply trying to hide the full extent of the taxpayer money the diminutive dictator is wasting, mostly-but not all-on outrageous legal fees. Why? Because it's an election year. Even the mallet-headed Martin realizes that a majority of residents are already dismayed by the money he is throwing away on legal fees.

Martin realizes that the residents of his once-proud City would be very upset by the fact that-in a very short period of time-his personal-and now City-Attorney Toad V. McMurtry (of the real estate law firm of Gerner and Kearns) has billed the taxpayers SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS on "code enforcement matters". How can Martin defend that? He doesn't plan to. Instead, he simply chooses to hide it from the taxpayers, saying that the information is "sensitive".

Let's just consider Martin's latest misadventure, the railroading of long-serving Police Chief Dan Goodenough. Keep in mind that even after Martin and his personal-and now City-Attorney Toad V. McMurtry (of the real estate law firm of Gerner and Kearns) sat down with the former Villa Hills Police Chief and presented him with the impossible choice of either retiring, giving up his First Amendment rights and his ability to ever seek employment in Villa Hills ever again or of facing the wrath of the mendacious Martin's fraudulent "mud machine", Martin continued to LIE, claiming that Goodenough was simply "taking a few days off".

Remember that Martin's personal-and now City-Attorney Toad V. McMurtry (of the real estate law firm of Gerner and Kearns) had already been spending a large amount of billable taxpayer-funded time "investigating" the State Auditor's report that was allegedly triggered by an "anonymous letter" from an equally-allegedly concerned citizen. How do we know that McMurtry's taxpayer-funded investigation of the State Auditor's report was underway? Because the vile councilwoman Mary Koenig and her incredibly stupid protégé Holly Menninger-Isenhour publicly asked the malevolent Martin about Toad's taxpayer-funded investigation just a few months ago.

No wonder Martin has classified the abject waste of taxpayer money on lawyers and legal actions as "too sensitive" for the voters to see. Let's do a simple math exercise:

• Let's be generous and assume that Toad only spent TWENTY BILLABLE HOURS investigating the State Auditor's report. And let's be equally generous and say that Toad only billed the taxpayers ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS PER HOUR for that "investigation". So, TWENTY BILLABLE HOURS TIMES ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS PER HOUR = TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
• Let's be generous again and assume that Toad only billed one hour for joining Martin in the sit-down with Goodenough, presenting the Chief with two bad options So, ONE BILLABLE HOUR TIMES ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS PER HOUR = ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS.
• We're nowhere near done. Let's be generous again and assume that Toad only billed for the hours he spent during Goodenough's disciplinary hearing and two hours of "preparation time" per hour spent in the disciplinary hearing. That is FORTY-TWO HOURS TIMES ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS PER HOUR=FIVE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS.
• Oh, we're not finished yet. We are fairly convinced that part of the dishonest deal Martin struck to get Goodenough to retire involved paying Goodenough's legal fees. Let's again be generous and assume that Goodenough got a discounted rate. Remember that he had two attorneys at both dismissal hearings. We'll again low-ball the preparation time to two hours per every hour spent in Martin's kangaroo court. Let's say the total charge for both attorneys was a very cheap THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS PER HOUR. So, FORTY-TWO HOURS TIMES THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS PER HOUR = TWELVE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS.

Have you been running the extremely low-ball total? If not, it totals to TWENTY THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS to railroad Chief Goodenough. Sure, its still less than the TWENTY THREE THOUSAND DOLLAR-PLUS check Martin signed the purchase order for to reimburse himself for Toad's legal fees Martin incurred to defend himself in the October, 2012 removal hearing that resulted in Martin being CONVICTED ON SEVEN OF NINE COUNTS OF OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT AND NEGLECT OF DUTY.

But either way, its still a terrible waste of taxpayer money.