I was surprised by the lack of scrutiny given County Counsel
Karen Forcum’s statements in your news story regarding the $2
million legal fees San Benito County has accumulated since April
2000.
I was surprised by the lack of scrutiny given County Counsel Karen Forcum’s statements in your news story regarding the $2 million legal fees San Benito County has accumulated since April 2000.
In that article, Ms. Forcum makes the totally irrelevant point that many small counties employ only one county counsel, if any at all, and no deputy county counsels. As your article three days earlier, “County pays law firm $564,000,” pointed out, San Benito County employs Ms. Forcum as county counsel and three deputy county counsels.
The fact San Benito County has four full-time attorneys should make the outside legal bills less, and certainly not more, than other counties that have no full-time legal personnel. The question remains why the outside legal bills are so high for San Benito County when there are four full-time attorneys to handle the county’s business. The Free Lance will no doubt have the opportunity to bring this point up with Ms. Forcum in future articles about the spending of the county on the services of private law firms.
Jeff Bedell,
Hollister
