County attorney’s office handles thousands of cases a year
By SUZETTE PORTER
Article published on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007  |
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| County Attorney Susan H. Churuti |
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CLEARWATER – At any given point in time, the 50-member staff of the county attorney’s office is working on about 2,000 cases.
Most of the cases don’t make the news as did the settlement approved by the Board of County Commissioners on Jan. 9 between the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and two St. Petersburg men who claimed deputies used excessive force on Aug. 17 when they retained them at a St. Petersburg Enterprise Car Rental Store.
According to the settlement agreement, Desmond Small and Christopher Lobban alleged they were unlawfully detained, forced to the ground at gunpoint and injured when sheriff’s deputies stopped them after mistakenly believing that they were part of a drug deal.
Small will receive $65,000 and Lobban will get $35,000 to settle the case.
The county attorney’s office also has been in the news as it represented the Board of County Commissioners, the Charter Review Committee and the Supervisor of Elections Office in the lawsuit filed in August by 21 municipalities against proposed charter amendments.
Administrators for all sides will enter into court-ordered mediation on Monday, Jan. 29, 9 a.m. at Sunken Gardens. If the parties can’t come to an agreement, a second mediation session is scheduled on Friday, Feb. 9, 9 a.m., at a location yet to be determined.
County Attorney Susan H. Churuti said the first mediation session would include only administrators – as defined by each governing body’s charter. She said Steve Spratt would be representing the county and that each municipality would comply with the law in sending its representative, who could be a city manager, mayor or council member.
Conceivably, adding in the lawyers, as many as 100 people could be involved as Jon Kiefer begins his job as mediator, Churuti said. The proceeding is open to the public to watch.
Kieffer has been a practicing attorney in St. Petersburg since 1972 and has been a certified Circuit Court Mediator since 1989, according to his Web site.
If things proceed to the next phase, a place bigger than Sunken Gardens will be needed, as each municipality’s council or commission, plus the county’s commission and all elected officials and their attorneys come together for another round of mediation.
Except for the cases needing approval by county commissioners, most of the county attorney’s business doesn’t make it into the public arena, and taxpayers may not be aware of the work done by the county attorney and her staff.
Churuti, who is appointed by the BCC and is directly responsible to the board, said her office works for the board of county commissioners, the circuit court, the tax collector, the supervisor of elections, the sheriff’s office, prosecutes code violations, does the tax collections, negotiates right-of-way cases, handles the risk management plus takes care of a myriad of other legal matters for all the county’s departments and 56 different boards.
According to the county’s Web site, www.pinellascounty.org, “The Pinellas County Charter provides that the office of county attorney shall be responsible for the representation of county government, the board of county commissioners, the county administrator, constitutional officers and all other departments, divisions, regulatory boards and advisory boards of county government in all legal matters relating to their official responsibilities. The office of county attorney shall prosecute and defend all civil actions for and on behalf of county government and shall review all ordinances, resolutions, contracts, bonds and other written instruments.”
“It’s a lot of work,” Churuti said.
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Article published on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007
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