3:27
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.