Scott Maxwell, veteran Orlando Sentinel reporter, has given taxpayers a powerful lesson in why they can't take their eye off the ball at city hall.
The story bears repeating here. The more light shed on elected officials' disregard for other people's money, the better I like it, and so should we all.
In his "Taking Names" column Thursday, Maxwell put the final nail in a story on Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer.
Dyer somehow found it necessary to hire attorney Barry Richard, husband of Florida Democratic Party Chair Allison Tant. Richard is one of the priciest and most prestigious counselors in Tallahassee, an attorney the National Law Journal named one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America" in 2006.
Why, you ask, did Dyer go out and hire high-flyer Richard? Did he need expert help on some big, tricky court case? Richard's going rate is $880 an hour after all. So you would think, hey, Dyer must be up against something very major.
Turns out, no, he's not. Democrat Dyer, mayor of the Central Florida city since 2003, wanted Richard to write a memo to the Orlando Sentinel, which is producing a series on police force in the city.
Maxwell said the memo was all of two pages "asking us to be careful about what we reported -- while acknowledging we usually are."
That's it. Expertise level required on a scale of 1-to-10? Optimistically, maybe 3.
But here's what gets Maxwell, and who can blame him? Not counting its legal staff on retainer, the city of Orlando has 19 attorneys on staff, at an average salary of $105,000. Nineteen. Yet apparently Dyer didn't think even one of them could rise to the occasion of a memo to the local newspaper.
Disgusted on behalf of taxpayers, Maxwell writes, "Orlando ... is the lowest-paying major metro in America. For many people, $880 isn't an hourly rate ... it's a paycheck."
Actually, the reporter found all this out and wrote about it in November. What he didn't find out and report until Thursday was Richard's final tab:
Richard billed taxpayers $9,337 for approximately 11 hours of work.
Maxwell said he has "no beef with politicians and bureaucrats trying to spin, pressure or bad-mouth journalists. They do it all the time." But couldn't Dyer have conscripted at least one of his legion of 19, did he have to go out and find a name-brand and send the bill to Orlando taxpayers?
"Listen, in the grand scheme of city finances, $9,337 isn't much," the reporter said.
On the other hand -- considering police force was the defining issue of Richard's labors -- Maxwell reminds readers $9,337 is enough to buy body cameras -- "the likes of which usually bring down force complaints and which Orlando has dragged its feet in implementing — for more than a dozen officers."
There's not much more to say here than that.
As I see it, with the exception of Barry Richard, just about everybody owes Scott Maxwell for the reveal his story represents: Dyer for the lesson in respecting the city's real billpayers, protectors of the Sunshine Law everywhere, the 19 attorneys who probably needed to feel relevant and most important of all -- Orlando's hapless, otherwise clueless taxpayers.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
