Thomas Breen file photo
Some expensive cracked concrete, outside the Boathouse.
Cracking concrete outside the Canal Dock Boathouse is set to cost the city another $210,000 in legal fees, as a city-contractor lawsuit drags into its third year.
On March 16, the Board of Alders Finance Committee voted to favorably recommend that their local legislative colleagues approve those city-projected legal fees for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
The local law firm Neubert, Pepe & Monteith is representing the city in the lawsuit, City of New Haven v. Nosal Builders, Inc., which is pending before the Connecticut Superior Court and is currently in mediation.
Laura Glesby Photo
Mike Piscitelli and Patricia King ask for permission to pay outside lawyer fees.
The Elicker Administration filed suit against the general contractor in charge of the Boathouse, Nosal Builders, in February 2021. Since then, as city spokesperson Lenny Speiller told the Independent on Tuesday afternoon, the city has spent $283,793 in total on legal fees related to the lawsuit.
In June 2022, alders granted the city permission to pay the firm up to $159,000 for their representation in the prior year. They allocated an additional $60,000 for the law firm’s services related to the lawsuit for Fiscal Year 2022 – 2023.
According to the city, that latter amount isn’t enough to cover the legal fees that the lawsuit has actually entailed this fiscal year; alders are now weighing whether to grant permission to raise that budgeted amount from $60,000 to $210,000.
The lawsuit centers around allegations that the general contractor in charge of constructing the publicly-owned Boathouse is at fault for poorly-executing the concrete deck, pier, and promenade, which is already exhibiting cracks less than five years after the $20 million capital project was completed.
Since then, the case has languished in mediation as Nosal Builders aims to cast blame on subcontractors for the shoddy work.
Finance Committee alders on a recent Thursday.
“It’s generally acknowledged that there is fault here,” explained Corporation Counsel Patricia King, the city’s top attorney. The question, King said, is whom to hold accountable. She said that the various companies involved are deploying competing experts to parse through the highly technical question of what went wrong. “It’s been a long process with a complicated case.”
King argued that the lawsuit is important to ensure “accountability” for the quality of a service paid for by the city. “Taxpayer money was used to create an asset,” she said.
“Is this gonna be enough?” asked Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison, noting that the city had asked for an increase in funding for the lawsuit in the prior year, too. “I always get suspect” when paying for an outside law firm, Morrison said.
While the city can’t predict future legal fees, “your point is well taken,” said City Economic Development Administrator Mike Piscitelli. “This is a pretty heavy lawsuit.”
Ultimately, the committee alders decided to favorably recommend the spending request, which will next go before the full Board of Alders for further deliberation and a final vote.
“I appreciate us as a city wanting to protect our investment,” said Amity/Westville Alder Richard Furlow. “The cost of repairs will significantly outweigh the amount of money here,” he predicted, noting that he would like to know the estimated cost of fixing the concrete.
"No Idea What This Is"
Schools COO Thomas Lamb and Corp Counsel Patricia King.
The Finance Committee heard two other proposals to pay outside lawyers for representing the city during that same Thursday evening meeting.
They voted in favor of increasing payments to the law firm Berchem, Moses, and Devlin from $99,500 to $124,500, to help compensate for three vacancies among the city’s in-house lawyers.
And they heard a proposal to permit the Board of Education to pay the law firm Shipman & Goodwin $517,204 — for an unknown purpose.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Chief Operating Officer Thomas Lamb presented that last request to alders with the caveat that he had just returned from leave in January. “When I returned,” he said he saw an “exponential increase in legal matters” facing the Board of Education. He said he could not speak to what those matters were.
“These billable hours — they already performed this work?” asked West River Alder and Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers.
“I think so,” responded Lamb.
Board President Tyisha Walker-Myers: This is all the info?
“The information you gave us is all the information the Board of Education sent you here with?” she asked. When Lamb responded affirmatively, she continued, “Why don’t we have someone from the Board of Education who can give us information? I feel like it’s very disrespectful.”
“This is more than half a million dollars,” said Westville Alder and Finance Committee Chair Adam Marchand. He asked for more information about the type of work that the law firm performed, their hourly rate, and their history working with the Board of Education.
“There is no way I will be voting on a spreadsheet with no idea what this is,” Furlow said.
The alders decided to take no action on the item, instead requesting that Lamb return with a new presentation aided by the Corporation Counsel’s office.
Good to see the Board exercising a modicum of responsibility on the BoE thing. Frustrating to see everyone held hostage by 300% cost overruns from lawyers who bill at 10-15x what most people in this city are making.
The state needs to change its barring rules from a guild system chosen by the ABA to protect members' salaries to a merit-based system that prizes allows anyone to attain and then demonstrate relevant learning & experience. I know several people who have become lawyers in the last 10 years and every single one of them agrees that the Venn diagram overlap between "what you learn in law school" (which at Yale is >$200,000 these days), "what the Bar tests you on," and "what you actually need to know to be good at your job" is comically small.