Legal fees soar past $130k in court fight to pick St. Louis County prosecutor
There is a new round of expensive invoices after a lengthy battle for the new St. Louis County prosecuting attorney.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. - There is a new round of expensive invoices after a lengthy battle for the new St. Louis County prosecuting attorney.
We first told you in January about the $19,135.00 tab taxpayers will have to pick up in the battle between St. Louis County Executive Sam Page and former Missouri Governor Mike Parson.
New invoices now show a heftier bill of $111,319.50.
It was distressing news to County Councilman Dennis Hancock, who told us it was, “…beyond what I thought it was going to get to.”
Councilman Mark Harder was also stunned, adding, “This thing just keeps going on and on and on.”
The attorney’s fees are for the county executive's failed court fight to appoint Cort Van Ostran to replace Wesley Bell as top prosecutor. Instead, the governor won the right to appoint Melissa Price Smith.
“If the County Executive had any kind of relationship with the Governor—(Page) is the head of the largest political subdivision in the State—you would think he’d be able to pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, can we work something out?'" Hancock said.
County Executive Sam Page answered questions about the attorney’s fees after we obtained the first round of invoices on Jan. 9.
“We have 750,000 registered voters in St. Louis County. They should be, whenever possible, electing our leaders," he responded.
Why not rely on internal counsel?
He answered, “We have limited bandwidth. Our budget has been cut for our attorneys. Our attorneys are overwhelmed with their normal routine work, and I need to make sure the normal routine work in St. Louis County continues to get done, that we continue to be able to buy things under contract, and that we have salt and snowplows and police cars.”
We asked for another comment after the latest bills. County spokesperson Doug Moore wrote, “St. Louis County should choose its elected leaders. Fighting for that value is important.”
Councilman Harder had this warning: “This is in total with the settlements we’ve been paying out recently. We just can’t be on this glidepath. We are on a path that’s going to lead to our financial destruction.”
The total cost so far for the fight over the top prosecutor is $130,454.50, with possibly another month of billing on the way.
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