A growing city with increasing complexities has forced the city of Durango to expand its in-house attorney operations. In addition to the demands, frequent ethics complaints, persistent open record requests and a steady stream of lawsuits have troubled the attorney’s office in recent months, according to some city councilors.

Former city attorney Dirk Nelson resigned Oct. 19, giving no warning and little explanation for his sudden departure, other than to say he was “currently unable to perform the essential functions of his position.”

His resignation came the same day the city hired Tony Maestas to assist the city attorney’s office with the duties, said Tom Sluis, city spokesman.

Maestas was promoted to interim city attorney the next day, but he, too, has since announced his resignation effective Monday. Maestas said he was hired to learn municipal law under Nelson, but being thrust into the position as interim city attorney, in addition to the added responsibilities, “allowed me to realize municipal law was not the area of law I want to focus on in my next decade of practicing law.”

Nelson left big shoes to fill, Sluis said Thursday. He thinks the workload is just too large for one person to handle.

“I think that’s typical with any job position where someone has been handling the responsibilities for a certain number of years,” he said. “It’s often the case in any industry (that) when somebody retires you suddenly have to hire multiple people to replace them because they have just become so efficient at what they did.”

Until recently, the city of Durango had only a paralegal and one attorney on staff. But late last year, City Council increased the department to three positions, including the city attorney, assistant attorney and a paralegal.

By comparison, La Plata County government has its own in-house attorney’s office with six attorneys and an office assistant. (One of the attorneys specializes in child protection services, so is not involved with day-to-day county business.)

The city and the county are different entities and have different needs – for example, the county must deal with a lot of gas issues – but it is still a large discrepancy.

The city attorney deals with a host of issues such as lawsuits, property acquisitions, railroad easements, intergovernmental negotiations, pipeline right-of-ways, crafting language for elections, bonding issues, open space acquisitions, water and sewer laws, energy contracts, writing ordinances, affordable deed restrictions and the city ethics code, among others, City Councilor Kim Baxter said.

Nelson’s resignation and Maestas’ planned departure puts the city in the position of needing to fill an interim position and a permanent position.

Durango City Council appeared to make headway at Tuesday’s City Council meeting when it voted unanimously to approve contract negotiations to bring on Bill Tuthill, principal at WAT Legal LLC, for the interim role.

Councilor Jessika Buell said the attorney office’s workload is “substantial,” and distrust from members of the public and even among councilors has fueled ethics complaints, lawsuits and “excessive” open records requests.

Councilor Olivier Bosmans filed two ethics complaints against Baxter, then mayor, in 2021, and former councilors filed one ethics complaint against Mayor Barbara Noseworthy. The complaints were dismissed after review by the Durango ethics board.

During a presentation in November, Faye Harmer, city clerk, said the city receives as many as 300 open records requests a year, and even the simplest records requests can take an hour or longer just for a proper response. The city attorney usually plays a role in the open records requests by looking at the requests and advising the city clerk on what information should or should not be provided.

On Dec. 6, City Council voted to settle an open records lawsuit against the city and agreed to pay $3,250 to Pagosa Springs attorney Matt Roane, who filed the lawsuit. The city is still dealing with another lawsuit questioning the city’s finances filed by Roane on behalf of Durango resident John Simpson.

“I think it’s been really hard on our interim city attorney and our past city attorney. I don’t know if that will change anytime soon,” Buell said.

Noseworthy said the volume of work is why the city hired Maestas to assist Nelson in the first place. A paralegal who was retiring agreed to stay on longer to help the attorney’s office as well.

In an interview on Thursday, Noseworthy said memorandums of understanding and intergovernmental agreements have further complicated the attorney’s workload, in addition to open records requests, lawsuits and ethics complaints.

“We recognized that was too much work for one attorney,” she said. “And then we hired Tony. At the same time, that was when we were very surprised – and I’m not at liberty to discuss – with Dirk’s resignation. … We awarded several months of pay for his good service.”

Noseworthy said it appears people are trying to pull “Gotcha’s” on the city through lawsuits, complaints and open record requests instead of discussing their concerns with the city manager or councilors. Some people might be trying to make a name, or an income, for themselves, she said.

Tuthill, who is being considered for the interim position, described himself as a semiretired sole practitioner with 15 years of experience as Jefferson County’s primary litigator and then county attorney, 13 years as the Broomfield city and county attorney, and a year and a half as the city of Thornton’s interim city attorney.

He said he was involved in some of Colorado’s biggest open records cases, including litigation over open records and autopsies following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. Nowadays, Tuthill represents municipal clients such as San Miguel County on a part-time basis.

The attorney told City Council he can start working as early as next week and can commit up to 30 hours a week to the city of Durango. If he finds the job requires more work than that he will request permission to hire help, he said. He also said he will try to convince Tony Maestas, interim city attorney, to stay with the city a little longer. He offered his services for a flat rate of $18,000 per month.

Tuthill also said the city’s search for a permanent city attorney will take longer than City Council members’ hopes or expectations. It will likely be early summertime by the time interviews are completed and he or she transitions into the role – a month or more later than City Council anticipated.

“Can I be available for that period? Yeah, I can,” he said.

cburney@durangoherald.com