Why the Rush? Inside the Confusing Push to Replace the School Attorney

What should have been a routine midsummer meeting turned into a legal scramble.

And not the healthy kind where a board carefully evaluates options. This felt rushed, messy, and half-baked.

Board Member Tony Alfano openly admitted during the July 8th meeting that he initiated the push to change attorneys. His reason? He was dissatisfied with how the current attorney handled internal conflicts - some going back as far as two years.

“I was unhappy with several personnel decisions that were affected by legal opinions,” Alfano said. “It had nothing to do with money… I initiated the RFQ.”

But once questions started - especially about special education, where the current firm has performed well - Alfano’s confidence visibly slipped. Asked whether special-ed counsel was also being replaced, he pivoted and said the board might “split that up,” even though the RFQ had already been issued.

This ad-hoc approach drew pushback from other members. One pointed out, “The process usually starts in January or February,” allowing ample time for vetting. Instead, the board is now extending the current firm’s contract by one month while scrambling to schedule interviews - an inefficient plan that could result in repeating this cycle monthly.

To complicate matters, the RFQ requested a wide range of services - general counsel, labor, negotiations, special education - all bundled. As one member noted, “There are districts that hire different firms for different things,” suggesting a more modular approach would have made more sense.

In the end, Alfano tried to own it:

“If you want a boogeyman, I’ll be the boogeyman.”

But for parents and taxpayers, this was never about a “boogeyman.” It was about whether board leadership had a clear process before blowing up a critical vendor relationship. And as one member put it bluntly:

“The attorney’s not a referee between board members.”

That may be the whole issue in one sentence.