Washington County Attorney’s Office—2017 Annual Report 10 Civil Division “Like any other skill, advising county departments on the law is something perfected through lots of practice.” The civil division is to be the County’s civil lawyer; and, because of its commission, the civil division’s responsibilities are manifest and atomized. It’s duties range far afield from crafting county contracts, to rendering legal opinions to representing the County’s interest in Court. In fact, 2017 was a particularly litigious year finding the civil division defending the County in a number of variegated actions. Of particular note was the division’s defense of the County in a suit against the County and the Community Development Agency (CDA) brought by several citizens challenging the establishment of a tax increment financing TIF district in the City of Newport. TIF law is not anything but arcane, and it was a mind numbing exercise to distill the issues and prosaically present to the court. In the end, both the County and CDA prevailed. As an added bonus the Court’s order included a requirement for the Plaintiffs to pay the County and CDA its reasonable attorneys’ fees. We had to quickly extemporize our hourly rate as we are seldom awarded attorneys’ fees. As alluded to previously, the civil division’s legal imperatives transcend the County as entity, touching and concerning each County department individually. For example, the civil division continues a successful collaboration with Community Services to collect Medical Assistance reimbursements, attaining a collection rate “north” of 99 percent in 2017. The civil division also opened the Court house doors to the County’s collections department resulting in tens of thousands of dollars put in County coffers. Civil Division Chief George Kuprian The Civil Division is the legal advisor to the County Board. County Commissioners are Fran Miron, District 1, Stan Karwoski, District 2, Gary Kriesel, District 3 and Lisa Weik, District 5. District 4 is vacant.