The exact cost for the City of Prince George to hire a labour lawyer to lead collective bargaining with its unionized employees won't be made public.
According to a response to a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA) request made by The Citizen, that information is protected by solicitor-client privilege.
Last January, the city announced they had brought on Adriana Wills from the Vancouver-based firm Harris & Co. to serve as their chief spokesperson during collective bargaining with the Canadian Union of Public Employees locals 1048 and 399.
In the response to the Citizen's request, city legislative director and FOIPPA co-ordinator Walter Babicz cited a ruling by the B.C. Supreme Court that came to the conclusion that even a "summary accounting document reflecting the total amount of payment to a law firm on a particular matter was also subject to solicitor-client privilege" under the relevant section of the freedom of information act.
The city does have to disclose the total amount paid to Wills's firm in its annual Statement of Financial Information, released every spring, if the amount is more than $25,000. That figure, however, would include all work done by any of Harris and Co.'s 37 attorneys over the last year, not specifically for Wills's work with bargaining.
At the time, then-acting city manager Kathleen Soltis said the decision to bring on Wills was to get through the negotiations "effectively and efficiently."
In a January interview, Soltis also said the cost for Wills was based on an hourly rate with a daily cap with her fee coming out of the administrative budget.
"She is pretty efficient, so we're hoping that we will be able to do things reasonably quickly and that the costs won't add up too much," Soltis said at the time.
The city and CUPE came to a tentative agreement Tuesday afternoon, more than year after the union's previous five-year contract expired Dec. 31, 2012.
