City will hire redevelopment lawyer
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 6 March 2011 — 5 comments below »
It is about damn time.
The city council will hire a lawyer specializing in redevelopment law following action at Tuesday evening’s meeting. The council plans to retain the services of the law firm Goldfarb & Lipman, based in Oakland, which specializes in affordable housing, redevelopment, and land use law.
The staff report acknowledges that this recommendation comes as a result of the firm conducting the audit of the city’s finances: “One recommendation repeatedly made by Mike Oliver, MRG is that the City retain a lawyer specializing in Redevelopment Law.”
This is a no-brainer and should have happened long ago.
Finally!!!
Goldfarb is a good firm with experienced redevelopment attorneys. As a former deputy city attorney for Oakland, I have had professional dealings with a number of their attorneys, including Tom Webber, Jennifer Bell and John Nagle.
They should also retain the services of a bankruptcy attorney since its looking almost certain at this point.
It’s great that the City is retaining a firm that specializes in redevelopment, but were others allowed to bid on this?
Just a question
I didn’t see that come through Tuesday evening! They had no report from closed session. I left around 10 – did they hire the firm?