Michelson Gets $100,000 More From Sunrise
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Ooops, I made a mistake along with all the rest of the media.
We printed that Sunrise City Attorney Stuart Michelson was pulling $432,000 out of the city. It’s really running at around $532,000 annually.
Michelson has been earning about $100,000 more than his city contract for extra work a $45,000 opinion for a city utilities bond issue and the rest for other legal work.
Stuart Michelson
He better get his money fast because his no-bid deal with Sunrise could be over soon.
City Commissioners, prodded by the new Mayor Mike Ryan, are about to ask other law firms to apply for the city attorney’s job. The vote could come Thursday.
Michelson he’s the husband of County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman has been invited to reapply for his job.
If Michelson retains his position, he could have to swallow a new, less lucrative contract. Ryan seems intent on changing the way business has been done in Sunrise City Hall.
Ryan is one of two lawyers on the commission. The other is assistant State Attorney Sheila Alu.
She’s a government lawyer collecting a straight salary. Ryan is a private attorney with the Fort Lauderdale firm of Krupnick Campbell who knows something about fees and billing.
Ryan said the most important factors for the Sunrise city attorney are:
- Experience with government work.
- Accessibility and availability to the commissioners and staff.
- A limit on hiring other lawyers to help out. “One question is how much outside counsel work will be needed, Ryan said. “Those outside counsel bills can go up very quickly.
- Concentration on Sunrise’s business. “I want someone who is not distracted by outside work, Ryan said.
Michelson’s contract allows him to handle clients other than Sunrise. His law practice’s website give him very little latitude to pass any private clients to other lawyers. The first sentence is:
“When you retain Stuart Michelson, you get Stuart Michelson.
I will personally be involved in every important aspect of your case.
Alu’s position on Michelson is a question mark.
She has been dissatisfied with his opinions on several issues, including allowing Roger Wishner to return to a commission seat after losing his race for mayor last month.
Publically she is not criticizing Michelson.
At last week’s discussion of the city attorney’s contract, Alu said she didn’t regret being one of the three votes who handed the job to Michelson two years ago without taking competitive proposals from other lawyers.
“I chose Mr. Michelson because I knew he was the best, she said.
But Alu said the no-bid hiring was widely criticized and now agrees that the contract should be open to other lawyers immediately.
“Although I have had issues with some of Mr. Michelson’s opinions, he has been handling the city’s daily routine legal work well. That being said, it is inappropriate to pre-judge the proposals the city might receive from interested applicants before we even start. I intend to keep an open mind, Alu wrote Browardbeat.com in an e-mail.
Throwing Michelson’s future in doubt could have a major effect on the dynamics of the county commission. Commissioner Ilene Lieberman can’t help being distracted when her family faces a loss of $100,000s.
It would be the second outside distraction for Lieberman. She is under investigation by the authorities in the probe of Broward County government, according to sources and printed reports.
Michelson did not return a call to his office for comment.
Me? I think the deal to hire Michelson without even talking to other attorneys stunk. It was foolish fiscally and politically.
I’m looking forward to seeing Michelson compete for his job…just like the Sunrise commissioners compete for their jobs every election.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
He probably got more. Michelson needs to go along with lobbyist Russ Klenet and their protector Roger Wishner. It is time to clean up Sunrise!!!
September 20th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
The crime was awarding Mr. Michalson a contract without seeing if anybody else could do the same quality of the work for less. Mr. Michalson had ever been a city attorney so it appeared to me to be a payoff to his wife, Commissioner Lieberman. I blame Feren, Wishner and Alu for wasting the money.
September 21st, 2010 at 7:48 am
Me? No way! Russ can go, maybe Michelson too, but Ron Book should definitely go before me!
September 21st, 2010 at 9:37 am
At last week’s discussion of the city attorney’s contract, Alu said she didn’t regret being one of the three votes who handed the job to Michelson two years ago without taking competitive proposals from other lawyers.
REALLY? IS THIS THE SAME ALU THAT FOUGHT TO HAVE A CERTAIN GARBAGE COMPANY CONTTRACT BID SO HER PALS AT WASTE MGMT COULD SLIDE IN? SHE SURE DOES CHANGE HER SPOTS WHEN IT BENEFITS HER.
September 21st, 2010 at 10:55 am
Hey Really,
You are damned right! You called it!
Buddy, how can Alu was the best when they hired him!? He wasn’t a municipal experienced attorney then!!!!!!!
Buddy, you are a journalist, so then you should be writing about Home and Garden, and you should be writing about science issues, because you are a journalist! RIGHT? WRONG!!! THIS MIGHT BE MS. ALU’S LOGIC BUT IT IS NOT ON POINT AND ANYONE CAN SEE THAT! SHE WAS TIGHT WITH ILENE AND VOTED TO GIVE THE DEAL TO AN INEXPERIENCED MUNICIPAL ATTORNEY SO HER RUNNING AROUND TOWN WITH HER HER HOLIER THAN THOU SHIT IS SO FUCKING HYPOCRITICAL!! IT WAS A HORRIBLE NO BID DEAL HER BOSS SHOULD HAVE INVESTIGATED!
September 21st, 2010 at 11:08 am
Stone Cold is on target with his comment about Alu. If this was anybody else, her boss Mike Satz would be investigating the no-bid hiring of inexperienced Stuart Lieberman-Michelson to pay off political debts. Alu led the charge to hire Lieberman-Michelson and now must face the consequences.
September 21st, 2010 at 11:32 am
At the April 28, 2009, meeting, Michelson pooh-poohed the notion that voting to create the B-7 zoning would lock the commission into actually granting it to the Everglades Corporate development.
“That’s a legislative decision that this board would make,” said Michelson during the meeting. “They [the developers] have no right to it.”
Michelson was just flat wrong — and he has contradicted himself about it since.
After the commission created the B-7 zoning, it is in a position that it must present a “competent and substantial” legal argument to deny the developers. It’s not a “legislative” decision anymore; it’s a legal decision to be made in what is called a “quasijudicial” hearing — and the developer holds the cards.
What is Michelson saying now? Sheila Alu, the only commissioner to vote against creating the B-7 zoning, says he completely changed his tune. She says that both Michelson and another lawyer he hired on the issue, Tallahassee lawyer/lobbyist Bob Nabors, have both told her that either she vote to give the Everglades Corporate Park the new zoning status or face a lawsuit. Alu said that Michelson was so fervent about it in phone calls that he warned that she could be sued personally if she didn’t vote with the developer.
When I asked Michelson, who communicated with me in emails, why he would do an about-face on such an important development, he initially said I had been “misinformed” before writing: “It is a quasi judicial hearing. The Commission must vote based on the facts presented at the hearing, and apply the facts to the law.”
​If only he’d said that during last year’s meeting instead of misrepresenting the issue. Michelson, for whatever reason, was either flat-out lying or was just dead wrong about what he told the commission in April 2009.
September 21st, 2010 at 3:13 pm
I think Michelson was the chazzer they were talking about.
Frank Lopez: You know what a chazzer is?
Tony Montana: No, Frank, you tell me. What is a chazzer?
Frank Lopez: It’s a Yiddish word for “pig.” See, the guy, he wants more than what he needs. He don’t fly straight no more.
September 21st, 2010 at 4:36 pm
The no show State Attorney of 20 years, Ms. Satz, needs to open an investigation into the original hiring with a no bid deal, of Mr. Lieberman…..
…and Stone Cold demands it be OPENED YESTERDAY! AND THIS INCLUDES INVESTIGATING MS. ALU!
AND THE NEW MAYOR OF SUNRISE ALSO NEEDS TO WEIGH IN ON THIS!!!
September 21st, 2010 at 10:34 pm
They won’t put Garbage out to Bid they just did a backdoor deal with Republic to charge the residents 2.00 more but Republic will Kick Back the 2.00 increase back to City to continue with a contract that hasn’t been Bid In Almost 35 Years!!!
September 22nd, 2010 at 2:44 pm
I am praying that the Sunrise City Council fires the third rater Michelson. Without his wife’s intervention he would be back to working for a living. I wonder what the two of them will do with their $1 million office once she is out of office or in jail.
September 24th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Woody Guthrie wrote one of the greatest lines that fits perfectly here. “Been around the whole wide world. Seen lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen.”