Board majority balks at supervisor’s plan to hire deputy town attorney and reorganize the office

Town board members scuttled Supervisor Yvette Aguiar’s plan to reorganize the town attorney’s office and install a new deputy town attorney as second-in-command to newly appointed Town Attorney Erik Howard.

The board on Tuesday tabled resolutions hiring a new deputy town attorney and restructuring the office, because Town Attorney Erik Howard, who was appointed at the meeting, was not given an opportunity to have input into the decisions.

Councilman Tim Hubbard moved to table a resolution hiring Patricia Murphy Theodorou as deputy town attorney, filling a vacancy created by Howard’s promotion. Hubbard and Councilman Ken Rothwell said Howard should participate in the hiring process. 

Councilman Frank Beyrodt joined Hubbard and Rothwell in the vote to table the resolution, which Councilman Bob Kern and Aguiar opposed, citing an “extensive interview process” conducted by the town.

Aguiar and Kern interviewed candidates for the town attorney position, which was advertised in December, after longtime Town Attorney Bob Kozakiewicz said he’d be retiring at the end of January. Hubbard, with Kern, is a member of the personnel committee and would usually participate in interviews, but he recused himself because Howard is his son-in-law.

“I had an extensive process with various members of the town and I was told that this would go through,” Aguiar said. “I don’t know why I went through all this process and had all these conversations and we had the former town attorney involved, at the current time,” she said.

Aguiar said the town attorney’s office needs structure because “I have attorneys writing resolutions asking for $19,000 in back pay because they worked under COVID.”

She added that Hubbard and Howard had a chance to meet Theodorou.

In an interview after the meeting, Howard said he first met Theodorou on Friday but said “it wasn’t a formal interview process, and I don’t know any of the other applicants or finalists for the town attorney job.”

The town board did not approve a job posting for the deputy town attorney position. Theodorou had applied for an been interviewed for the town attorney job, according to the tabled resolution appointing her as deputy.

The resolution would have also approved a budget adjustment of $32,576 to cover Theodorou’s starting annual salary of $138,500. Howard, who got a 6.5% pay raise in early January, was paid a salary of $102,789 as a deputy town attorney. He will be paid an annual salary of $139,000 as town attorney.

“I just think the process itself was done poorly. And it needed to be done better,” Hubbard said in an interview after the meeting. He said the town attorney should be involved in the decision. “You don’t hire a police captain and say ‘here, chief, here’s your captain.’ You do it with the assistance of the police chief. So it just makes sense. That’s how it should have been done.”

Hubbard said the subject of hiring a deputy town attorney was never brought up in executive session, where personnel matters are usually discussed by board members. He said the town will likely start a typical hiring process for a new deputy town attorney, where all board members are able to speak to applicants.

Rothwell said in an interview after the meeting he supported tabling Theodorou’s appointment because he had not seen her resumé or talked to her prior to the town board meeting. 

“Before I hire a deputy town attorney I want the insight of my town attorney that was just appointed,” Rothwell said. ”You got to give them time. You don’t appoint a town attorney and then in a minute and a half later on the next resolution on the list appoint a deputy town attorney and restructure the whole staff and say, ‘Here go work with it,’” Rothwell said.

“The person who was on the agenda may, in fact, be that person, and may have an incredible amount of talent,” he added. “But I can’t vote for somebody that I haven’t even spoken to. I haven’t been given any information on it, nor do I know what direction the town attorney is looking for.”

The other resolutions tabled by the board would have created a new organizational structure in the town attorney’s office and further defined the power of the employees.

Aguiar was the only town board member who voted against tabling these resolutions.

When asked after the meeting about the resolutions to restructure the town attorney’s office, Aguiar said: “There was a need for a town attorney. There was also a need for structure — we don’t have structure — and all towns have a structure. They have a succession structure. We worked with labor counsel. We decided to designate people in the resolutions. I’ve been very open to the town attorney, to the town board about this. And I guess they just wanted me to vote for him. And I put the resolutions forward and they decided that they were going to vote against them. And it’s very disappointing when you put so much work and something like that happens at the last minute.”

Rothwell said he moved to table the resolutions restructuring the town attorney’s office because he is “against micromanaging.” Hubbard expressed the same sentiment.

“I feel when you have a team and everybody’s on the same level of field, the town attorney will disseminate the work, as he desires, and who has better leadership skills and or knowledge and certain paths of legislation than others,” Rothwell said.

“For us to sit and micromanage how that office is gonna run, I think is unfair to the town attorney that we just appointed a few minutes prior. And so I don’t think that we need to give titles to everybody,” he said.

Howard said he is considering restructuring the town attorney’s office as the new department head. “It’s something that needs to be done. And whether it is exactly that way or not, I’m not totally sure yet,” he said, referring to the resolutions tabled by the board.

“We have two attorneys who’ve been there for a very long time right now,” Howard said. “I want to sit down with them and get a list of what they’re working on, what they sort of specialize in, and I want to rebalance the workload and make sure that everybody in the office is working with a full plate, but a manageable full plate.”

“But really, the idea is I want to make it a more cohesive team office,” Howard said. “That hasn’t traditionally happened all the time. Everybody kind of focuses on what they’re doing. There’s not a lot of communication between the attorneys. So that’s something that I really want to bring in so that it all feels like if one of us is working on a project, we’re sort of all working on it, so that, you know, the success of the office is everybody’s success. And when you miss something, everybody misses it.”

He said he is considering making a “second in command” in the office, while the other two employees would be equals. He said something internal like the restructuring of office responsibilities doesn’t need to be set by resolution.

Aguiar said the positions outlined in the resolutions were made based on the “experience and ability of the attorneys.”