HUDSON – None of three finalists for Hudson town counsel received a majority of votes from the Select Board on Aug. 15.
Until the board can decide on a new counsel, the current counsel Aldo Cipriano would be retained by the town, said Select Board Chair Scott Duplisea.
The three finalists were Cipriano, Brooks & DeRensis and KP Law.
Duplisea voted for KP Law while Select Board member Michael Burks Sr. voted for Brooks & DeRensis. Cipriano did not receive votes, as the other three Select Board members abstained.
Duplisea said that the decision to select town counsel is difficult, but that he did not understand why there were three abstentions.
“I’m very disappointed in my colleagues that I have three abstentions,” Duplisea said.
Select Board member James Quinn, who explained his vote as he gave it, said he felt the Select Board could go through a different procedure to select town counsel.
“At this particular point in time, I have no problem with retaining town counsel as is for a short period of time until we figure this out,” Quinn said.
After Duplisea expressed his disappointment with the board’s inability to select a town counsel, members Judy Congdon and Shawn Sadowski explained their abstentions.
Sadowski said that he was not happy with the length of the interview process. He said there was repetition of answers during the interviews.
Sadowski added that he was concerned about the payout for attorneys on behalf of the town significantly increasing if Hudson hires a larger firm.
“I feel that we need to look at the billing system on this before we go away from a single attorney to a larger firm,” Sadowski said.
Congdon said that during the board’s interview with the firms on June 27, she had not been impressed with KP Law’s answers. Congdon, who noted that the president of KP Law answered most of the questions, said she would have preferred if all three of the firm’s representatives would have answered a similar number of questions.
“I did not like some of the answers to the questions from the other two,” Congdon said.
Congdon said while she thinks the town needs a new counsel soon, she would like to see the other four applicants who were not finalists.
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