The legal bills to taxpayers are adding up in the fight between the City Council and the mayor over who should run the police department in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The city has paid out just under $60,000,so far, to a Worcester law firm to represent Mayor Domenic Sarno, who has vowed to appeal a judge’s ruling that a City Council approved ordinance creating a five-member Board of Police Commissioners is “valid and enforceable.”
Asked about the expense, Sarno declined to comment.
City Solicitor Ed Pikula said the city’s Law Department could not participate in a case that pits one branch of city government against the other, so an outside counsel had to be hired. The attorneys representing the City Council are not charging for their work.
The report from the city’s Finance Department on what it has cost to defend Sarno was requested by the City Council at the urging of Councilors Trayce Whitfield, who chairs the Finance Committee, and Justin Hurst, who is a frequent critic of the mayor.
Whitfield said the money spent on the case could have been put to better use.
"We have an increased amount of gun violence happening in the city of Springfield and we need to combat that and it is going to take funding to do it," Whitfield said. She mentioned climate change and mental health issues that need funding.
In 2016 and again in 2018, the City Council voted to create the civilian Board of Police Commissioners with the authority to hire, fire, and discipline police officers and set policy for the department. Sarno ignored the ordinance, claiming it stepped on powers given to the mayor by the city charter.
Last September, the Council sued the mayor in Hampden Superior Court. In April, Judge Francis Flannery issued a 20-page decision in favor of the Council. Sarno’s lawyer filed a notice of appeal.
Hurst said he does not begrudge the mayor his day in court, but said appealing Flannery’s ruling is a waste of taxpayers’ money.
"In my opinion, the decision was laid out very succinctly and clearly and it clearly stated ( the City Council) has the power to reoganize departments, which is what we are doing, and it also clearly stated the mayor had the power to appoint the (police) commissioners without restrictions from the City Council," Hurst said. "To me, that is about as clear as you can get."
Discussing the case at a meeting of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, Michael Aleo, one of the attorneys representing the Council, said it will be several months before the case reaches the Appeals Court.
He estimated the Appeals Court might not take up the case until "mid-fall."
Springfield had a civilian police commission for decades. It was abolished 16 years ago by the state-appointed finance control board that put a single police commissioner in charge of the department.
Sarno has appointed the city’s last two police commissioners. In 2019, he named Cheryl Clapprood as Police Commissioner with a five-year contract.
