Linn Auditor Miller says he doesn't need outside attorney hired by supervisors

Linn County supervisors voted this morning to spend $175 an hour on legal advice for the county auditor's office during Auditor Joel Miller's lawsuit against the supervisors.

Miller said the contract with Robert O'Shea "is an effort to basically make me look bad, make my office look bad."

Miller filed suit against the supervisors last February after they refused to authorize his attempted promotion of Karen Heiderscheit to a deputy auditor's position. Miller hoped to have Heiderscheit audit accounts managed by county departments. He'd questioned the legal basis for the accounts, claiming state law requires they be managed by the auditor.

Supervisors hired a private attorney to represent Miller in his suit, but the county's three civil attorneys continued to advise him on routine business, mostly real estate questions. But when Miller filed public-records requests for the disputed accounts, "at that point it appeared to us to be untenable to continue" due to a potential conflict of interest, Assistant County Attorney Gary Jarvis said.

"I can't ask attorneys in our office to put in jeopardy their professional licenses," Jarvis told the supervisors. "It's not tenable ethically to continue with the assignment we had attempted to do."

"I don't think it's necessary," Miller said. "Certainly someone in (the county attorney's office) could provide me with legal support."

Supervisors voted 4-1 to hire O'Shea with a $10,000 limit. They'll review the contract when the limit is reached.

"This all started when this board interfered in the inside working of (Miller's) office," said Supervisor Brent Oleson, the dissenting vote. "I think it was done out of spite, or loyalty to some person who had been in there."

Oleson said he wasn't questioning Jarvis' concerns, "but I think it's unfortunate it's going to cost the taxpayers money."

"I don't think we have any choice," said Supervisor Lu Barron.

Miller said his office has a backlog of about 200 "problem deeds" since the county attorneys stopped advising him last month. He was unable to estimate how much of O'Shea's time it would take to address them.

"It might take five minutes, but some might take five hours," he said.