Lutz again defends actions that led to recall move

GAINESVILLE - Hall County Commissioner Craig Lutz Thursday defended the actions that have prompted a recall drive against him and again declared that he has done nothing to warrant a recall.

Appearing on Al Gainey & Company on WDUN, Lutz declared that no money was spent before he took office on hiring a temporary replacement law firm for the county attorney who was fired at the January 6 commission meeting, Lutz's first as a commissioner.

"Well, we couldn't employ them until after January," Lutz said.

"They were working contract, though," Gainey injected.

"They were working on contract," Lutz replied, "basically, at the risk that they may not get the job."

During the first three months of the year, according to figures provided by the county finance department last week, that firm, Holland & Knight, LLP, of Atlanta, billed the county for $289,832 or $161,862 more than did the old firm, Stewart, Melvin & Frost of Gainesville ($127,970), during the same period a year ago. Lutz defended that, saying there was a lot of "cleaning up to do" during the first quarter of the year.

"Unfortunately, some of those legal fees were probably re-work for things that had been done previously," Lutz said. "We did have a lot of interesting issues come up. We had a very interesting letter of credit that had to come through for the Spout Springs water reclamation facility and it drove up legal fees. We had a lot of personnel issues to deal with as well in the first part of this year. So, a lot of that did have an impact on legal fees."

Does Lutz believe now that the right thing was done in January to make those sweeping changes in the upper levels of management?

"Absolutely," he said. "I believe that this county is more prepared for this budget crisis we have coming up now than we were six months ago."

As for the recall move against him, Lutz told AccessNorthGa.com's Jerry Gunn Monday that in a way he's encouraged that citizens are interested enough in county government to seek his recall. (See earlier story.)

A group of citizens plans to meet Saturday to kick-off the drive to remove Lutz and possibly commissioners Ashley Bell and Scott Gibbs - the three who voted for the management overhaul - from office. (See earlier story.)