Unrequested, Unnecessary and Inappropriate
I am writing to correct and clarify certain assertions made by Ms. Sarah O’Reilly-Evans, city attorney, published originally in the Jackson Advocate and quoted in the Dec. 14, 2006, JFP article “City Shaken By Departures.”
First of all, I did not request of, or suggest to, the City Council that it should undertake to scrutinize or investigate the contract between the city and Ms. O’Reilly-Evans. Thus, there was nothing to “admit.”
Secondly, in reference to the conversation in New York, I was not “enraged,” I was insistent. I was insistent that Ms. O’Reilly-Evans, who is a city employee and not bond counsel, not issue a bond counsel opinion for her own purposes unrelated to the convention center financing. The city had selected, approved, and was to pay $140,000 for two law firms possessing specialized expertise and independent of the city to serve as co-bond counsel and to issue a bond opinion each; that is, two bond opinions. A third bond opinion was unrequested, unnecessary and inappropriate.
For common-sense reasons, the role of bond counsel was created long ago by the investment community for transactions where it loaned large sums of money to municipalities in exchange of their bonds, or pledges to repay. Rather than rely on the opinion of the borrower’s employee, Wall Street required that the essential opinion be delivered by counsel independent of the borrower and experienced in sophisticated areas of tax and municipal-finance law. Therefore, city employees and attorneys do not perform the role of bond counsel; the investment community would not accept their opinion nor buy the bonds.
— Peyton D. Prospere, Jackson
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