Stratford Needs In-House Legal Counsel! Enough spending millions annually!

I'm noticing a trend in Stratford that is most likely costing taxpayers a great deal of money in legal fees: defending suits that should be settled rather than defended. I've read about a few, over the last few months, one in Superior Court (written about in yesterday's Connecticut Post) and another by arbitration/mediation that I noticed in the Connecticut Law Tribune a few months back. We lost both. Why? Because the contract was specific about the event. While it sucked that the former Mayor (Jim Miron) made the payout to the former employees as he left office, was contractually proper. The other, a police dispatcher put in a grievance because a probationary police dispatcher was given a different shift than she was placed in for the duration of her probationary period rather than the permanent dispatcher being called in. Again, it was contractual - the probationary employee was not entitled to switch shifts until the probationary period was over. So, taxpayers footed the bill to pay the lawyers to fight these two cases (and others)..... This is precisely the reason why Stratford should have in-house counsel, paid one salary, instead of forking out millions for lawyers all over Connecticut! Ronald Ing should be called out on this - he obviously didn't read the contracts before passing these two actions to the attorneys to fight!

While I can't confirm, I have been told that the last word on weather items such as this are litigated is made by the Mayor and the Town Council really has no say.