Mayor Gerard Hudspeth’s displeasure over legal fees is no secret.
Hudspeth reiterated his displeasure at the Dec. 5 Denton City Council meeting when council member Brandon Chase McGee indicated that they should be willing to “take a stand for something” that could incur more legal fees if a ban on the sale of dogs and cats by retail pet stores could somehow become a reality.
“I’m not going to continue to spend $3 million a year on legal fees,” Hudspeth said at the Dec. 5 council meeting. “Just not going to do it. That’s 2 cents back to every household in the city of Denton spent on legal fees.”
Hudspeth was off by quite a large margin, according to a report from city staff on Dec. 15.
In the report, the city attorney’s office was responding to a request by McGee, who wanted a breakdown of attorney fees that the city had incurred since 2021. The breakdown revealed that the most the city has spent was $1.3 million in fiscal year 2022-23.
In FY 2021-22, the city spent $491,927, while so far for FY 2023-24, only $38,988 has been spent in legal fees.
Those legal fees involved court battles that made headlines from former council member Alison Maguire’s litigation against the city to stop her recall election to litigation that involved two former Denton Municipal Electric employees in a whistleblower lawsuit.
Other legal fees involved Core Scientific crypto mining facility, the Frontier Communications bankruptcy and the suit over a COVID-19 mask mandate. There are also legal fees spent over federal litigation from a father who sued the city after Denton police killed his son, a University of North Texas student, whom he argued was suffering from a mental health crisis.
The city separated the legal fees between council, electric and police for FY 21-22, FY 22-23 and FY 23-24. Those totals are as follows:
Council: $145,684 in legal fees
The City Council faced two lawsuits from Maguire — Maguire v. Rios and Maguire v. Hudspeth — who sought to stop her early November recall election and the certification of those election results since those who petitioned her recall were voters from her newly redrawn district who didn’t vote for her in her initial election.
The city spent $12,843 in FY 21-22 and $89,585 in FY 22-23 on the litigation.
In FY 21-22, the city also spent $43,256 in legal fees after the state sued the city over the council's COVID-19 mask mandate.
Electric: $1.653 million
Out of all the legal fees listed, those related to Denton Municipal Electric took the majority of the expense. There are several lawsuits listed in FY 21-22, 22-23 and 23-24.
In FY 21-22, the city was dealing with four lawsuits, including one that involved the Electric Reliability Council of Texas over what some have called price-gouging during Winter Storm Uri:
- $5,364 in the Delilah Solar Energy and Samson Solar Energy litigation
- $241,840 in the TCOS/UV litigation
- $97,993 in Uri litigation
- $64,974 in Grim & Maynard v. City of Denton
- whistleblower lawsuit
In FY 22-23, the city spent even more in legal fees from litigation that appeared on the previous year’s list.
- $326,478 in the Delilah Solar Energy and Samson Solar Energy litigation over a contract dispute related to power purchase agreement
- $127,152 in Grim & Maynard v. City of Denton
- $594,576 in the Transmission Cost of Service (TCOS)/Ultra Vires (UV) litigation, a rate case and a challenge to an interim rate
Other amounts included:
- $31,553 in the Uri litigation
- $15,987 in the Frontier Communications bankruptcy, a litigation that seeks to recover fees owed under a franchise fees and pole attachments
The city also spent $108,243 in legal fees that involved Core Scientific, the bitcoin mining facility in Denton that is working through a bankruptcy.
Dustin Sternbeck, the city’s chief communications officer, said that the city was seeking to recover fees owed under a land lease and power purchase agreement.
“Due to the general nature of Core’s bankruptcy proceeding, all debts, liabilities, contracts and assets become part of the bankruptcy estate controlled by the bankruptcy court,” Sternbeck said.
Not surprisingly, those legal fees continued into the new fiscal year:
- $3,443 in the Core Scientific litigation
- $11,450 in the Frontier Bankruptcy
- $2,155 in the Grim & Maynard v. City of Denton
- $21,939 in the TCOS/UV litigation
Police: $33,622
As for the Denton police, the city spent $25,654 and $7,968 in litigation over the Denton police’s 2020 killing of Darius Tarver, 23, a UNT student.
Tarver’s father, Kevin Tarver, a chaplain for the McKinney police, filed a federal lawsuit against the city and two of the four Denton police officers involved in his son’s death. Tarver claimed police violated his son’s Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force. He sought at least $10 million in damages.
As the Record-Chronicle reported in January 2022, “The body camera footage shows Tarver repeatedly calling out to God as police shoot him with a stun gun and a handgun before telling him to stay down. He gets up again, and along with using a stun gun, police shoot him with a handgun at least two more times. About one minute and 20 seconds after Tarver is shot the final time, an officer says he will start first aid.”
In October 2022, a judge dismissed claims against the city but not the officers, according to a Record-Chronicle report.