Thursday, June 25, 2020

City to Consider Replacing City Attorney with Legal Zoom as Cost-Cutting Measure

Trigger warning for the humor-challenged: Satire ahead. 

Faced with a $22 million budget deficit, the City Council has been brainstorming ways to balance the books.

“We’re in a unique position to be creative about this because we don’t know anything about municipal operations,” said the mayor.

However, the brainstorming has posed such a strain on council members that it had to be paused for an indefinite period after one council member ran a 104° temperature and another developed what appeared to be Tourette’s Syndrome, although a doctor later said that it was just burnout.

One proposal under serious consideration is a recommendation to replace the city attorney with Legal Zoom.

“This has several advantages,” said the city manager. “First, with an annual fee of $5,000, adopting Legal Zoom would result in $500,000 in savings. Second, it would provide the City with sound legal advice."

Gadfly Rufus Flywheel told the Council they needed to “reimagine and re-vision” the City Attorney’s office. “For example, there’s only one door to the office and it’s designed only for walking into the office.

“There should be a bike path and a bus stop,” he continued, adding that he was “shocked” by the local newspaper’s failure to cover this important issue. “It’s just another example of their bias against me.”

Other proposals under consideration include replacing the City Council with Council-in-a-Box software.

“This would cut millions that is being spent on irrelevant and pointless Council initiatives like the current investigation into whether Jed York’s dog groomer has ties to George Soros,” said a proponent.

A city commissioner suggested that the city also look into Mayor-in-a-Box software and offered to lead the task force to identify options. 
 
“Artificial intelligence is now off-the-shelf technology,” the commissioner said. “So we have an opportunity to upgrade at a very affordable price. We could also add a Roomba at no additional cost.”