News comes to iePolitics this weekend that the expected and highly anticipated departure of County Counsel Ruth Stringer has been placed on a delay track pending the hiring of a new county administrative officer to replace Mark Uffer.
Uffer was recently dismissed by a 3-2 majority vote of the board of supervisors.
Over the past several months, Stringer’s status has risen to that of embattled in a backdrop of growing discontent among county supervisors, over her conduct related to closed session and attorney-client privilege matters.
Also, in addition to a continuous display of extreme arrogance, reliable sources say Stringer privately refers to herself as the “Mother Hen” to the board members and their group of relatively young chiefs of staff. Apparently this conduct is now perceived has having manifested into a tone of defiance towards the board.
Stringer as County Counsel is a direct report to the five-member Board of Supervisors. Her position is “At-Will”.
Another point of concern to county supervisors is the extensive contracting-out of legal defense work at a significantly high cost to taxpayers. One factor driving the outside contracting is the lack of experienced litigators within the ranks of the fifty or so lawyers.
Finally, county departments over the past year have openly demonstrated a lack of confidence in the quality of legal advice they are forced to rely upon in making day-to-day business decisions.
It remains to be seen how much longer Stringer will remain and whether or not the decision to delay her departure comes back to haunt the board.
Only time will tell.
One would think Stringer would set an exit date sooner rather than later instead of forcing county supervisors to let her go.
It should be considered that having outside counsel take over midway through a case might be a strategy to keep County Counsel out of harms way when it is discovered they are suborning perjury.
Stringer is a loser. Apparently Ovitt wants to go down in history of having the worst county counsel the county has ever had. The fact that the Board will not get rid of this pestilence establishes them as contemtible cowards.
Counsel stringer is telling everyone on the Fifth Floor that she has outwitted them all. Looks like she has. Good job, Mark Kirk!
Hey Derry,
What does it matter if you get rid of Adolf Uffer and leave the Toxic One there?
Stringer is a disgrace and OVITT AND DERRY should pay a price for continuing to have the taxpayers pay to employ this disgrace. Ovitt deserves to be defeated at the polls due to his mismanagement and outright cowardice. You are a disgrace Ovitt. Ovitt and Stringer, two peas in a pod.