The Loxahatchee Groves Town Council agreed to hire Jeff Kurtz as the town’s in-house attorney at a meeting Tuesday, Aug. 5.
Kurtz, currently special projects manager for the town, is an attorney who previously served as legal counsel for the Village of Wellington. He was set to take over the post Thursday, Aug. 7 after the council went over some final changes to his proposed agreement at Tuesday’s meeting.
The vote on hiring Kurtz was 3-2 with Councilwoman Lisa El-Ramey and Councilman Paul Coleman dissenting.
It was the fifth time that the council had discussed the issue since previous Town Attorney Glen Torcivia announced his resignation in June. Torcivia’s firm, Torcivia, Donlon, Goddeau & Rubin P.A., has been the town’s legal counsel since 2019.
At a meeting July 1, the council looked over an initial in-house agreement with Kurtz and decided to advertise the position through a request for proposals (RFP). Meeting again on July 8, Councilman Todd McLendon floated the idea of meeting with Kurtz to makes changes to his proposal to make it more palatable to the council.
A revised agreement with Kurtz was the sole subject of a special council meeting on Tuesday, July 22. Not taking action that night, the council agreed to move forward with a previously scheduled Tuesday, July 28 meeting to interview the law firms that responded to the RFP, as well as more discussions with Kurtz.
Added to the mix on July 28 were two law firms that specialize in government law.
First up was Matt Ramenda and David Tolces of the law firm Weiss Serota Helfman. They represented a large firm with offices in Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, encompassing more than 100 attorneys with a wide variety of expertise.
Tolces worked with the town at the time of incorporation, serving the inaugural Loxahatchee Groves Town Council.
“It is nice to see how you have grown from the old meeting room at the water control district headquarters,” Tolces said. “This town was established to control development, and after 15 years, I think you have proven that there is a way to do that, and we would continue to help you keep the Groves, the Groves.”
Next up was John Fumero, Steve Conteaguero and Alicia Lewis from the law firm Nason Yeager.
“We are Palm Beach County based. We were founded in 1960 in West Palm Beach,” Fumero said. “The white hair factor is important. I am someone who has been practicing for 38 years, and I’ve been in every scenario possible.”
Nason Yeager offered both an hourly fee option and a flat fee option, which would be based on working for 90 days on an hourly basis to figure out the workload, and then offering a flat fee legal services proposal.
Both firms were asking for rates of more than $300/hour, which concerned several council members.
Also presenting at the meeting was Kurtz, who offered himself as either an in-house counsel or as a contracted law firm.
“If you would like to hire me, instead of as an employee, but as a law firm, I would consider that,” Kurtz said.
When the council returned on Tuesday, Aug. 5, there were four options on the table — the two large firms, and Kurtz as either an employee or a solo-operator law firm. At $225 an hour, Kurtz’s proposal was significantly less than the larger firms, but still potentially more than going with an in-house legal department at a starting salary of $135,000, plus the addition of a paralegal.
“If you go in-house, there’s going to be a higher level of service,” Kurtz said.
Kurtz said that his proposed budget for the entire in-house legal department is $310,000, with an additional $50,000 allocated for outside legal work, for a total of $360,000.
That is somewhat less than what the town has been paying Torcivia’s firm in recent years, but more than several council members wanted to pay.
Vice Mayor Marge Herzog made a motion to hire Kurtz as in-house counsel, seconded by McLendon.
“Do I think going in-house and having a full-time attorney and a full-time paralegal is hard to digest as a small town? It is, but I think it’s going to be more cost effective, as crazy as that sounds,” McLendon said.
Major sticking points were on the length of the agreement, what to do if the council was unsatisfied with Kurtz as in-house council, and what type of severance, if any, he would get if fired without cause.
A key issue was the town’s charter, which allows three votes to hire an attorney, but a four-vote supermajority to fire the town attorney. McLendon tried to get around that objection.
“If there are three council members who want to fire him in six months, you’ve got my vote,” McLendon said, and Mayor Anita Kane agreed to make the same commitment.
Coleman and El-Ramey were not convinced that having an in-house counsel was the best course of action.
“We are in unchartered territory here,” Coleman said. “Every other small town in this county has outside counsel. We are saying this is going to save us money, but I don’t know. This is nothing personal against Jeff. This is just me trying to be diligent and frugal.”
El-Ramey was concerned by rising costs set against a difficult budget year.
“I came in this evening willing to support Jeff as an in-house counsel model, [but] I find the greed at the management level of this town is a little unsavory, to say the least,” she said.
There was some discussion about money being saved by not including a paralegal in this year’s budget. El-Ramey also wanted to eliminate Kurtz’s current project coordinator position if he is hired as the in-house attorney.
Kurtz said that both of those issues do not need to be decided immediately. He added that he will advocate for a paralegal during the budget process, but hiring him as in-house attorney does not mandate the entire proposed budget.
The draft agreement with Kurtz included 20 weeks of severance. The council did not support including a severance package in the agreement. However, Kurtz warned that under state law, without a specified severance, he could be entitled to contractual damages should he be fired without cause before the agreement’s Jan. 31, 2027, end date.
