High Springs city attorney offers to designate Danielle as primary onsite counsel; commissioners to reassess in six months

At a regular meeting, High Springs' city attorney discussed shifting primary on-site representation to Danielle, an attorney with the firm who currently handles much of the city's work, and proposed a six-month assessment of how that arrangement performs.

Why it matters: commissioners and staff raised concerns about response times and local availability from outside counsel; assigning one attorney to attend meetings regularly and using an objective tracking tool would change how legal services are managed and measured.

What the city attorney proposed

The city attorney told the commission the city charter identifies the post as an individual office (city attorney or designee) and said he could designate Danielle to be the regular in-person/designee representative. He noted Danielle travels to Florida monthly and is "very, very responsive," and he said the firm could shift workload so she's present for at least one meeting each month.

"My plan is to designate her to assist," the city attorney said, adding he would assess the arrangement after six months and continue if the commission is satisfied.

Task tracking and transparency

The attorney also described a JotForm-based intake-and-tracking system his firm uses in other municipalities. That system records the date a request arrives, assigns it to an attorney, logs priority and status, and produces an auditable record of response times and completed work. He said the form would be a tool the commission and staff could use and that it would create objective performance data for legal services.

Commission response and next steps

Several commissioners said they were open to trying the arrangement and wanted assurances that High Springs would continue to receive experienced municipal-law support. The city attorney said he did not intend to withdraw from the city's representation and that experienced supervision would continue. The commission agreed to try the designee arrangement, have Danielle attend at least one meeting per month, implement the JotForm tracking in coordination with city management and reassess in six months.

Quotes

"If you'd asked me this question a year ago, I would have said Danielle is not ready for that. But I do think at this stage in her career, she is capable of handling more and more of your work," the city attorney said.

"If you're satisfied with it, we'll continue with it. If you want further change, we'll look at making a further change," he added.

What comes next

City management and the city attorney's office will coordinate implementation of the JotForm tracking system and schedule Danielle to attend at least one meeting per month; the commission asked for a six-month review of the arrangement.