Dec 19, 2019 3 min read

Washington County Solicitor J. Lynn DeHaven said last month he saw the handwriting on the wall as soon as the results of the commissioners’ race became apparent on election night.

On Wednesday morning, he submitted his resignation to the board of commissioners effective Jan. 6, ending his 16-year tenure as the county’s legal counsel.

With more than a few catches in his throat, DeHaven read a farewell statement to those attending the commissioners’ final agenda-setting session of the year.

“In my years of service, at no time was I ever asked to compromise my ethics or my legal opinion in rendering services,” DeHaven said, noting that he values his friendship with Commission Chairman Larry Maggi, a Democrat; soon-to-be chairman Diana Irey Vaughan, the top vote-getter in the election; odd man out Harlan Shober, a Democrat; and former Commissioner Bracken Burns, whose fourth, four-year term ended as 2015 drew to a close.

Irey Vaughan thanked DeHaven for his gentlemanly manner and “fortitude,” even during times when “he had the courage to tell us the decision we wanted to make was not in the best interest of the county.”

Asked about whom the next solicitor might be, Irey Vaughan said Wednesday, “There’s no contract worked out.”

Officials take office on Monday, Jan. 6, when Irey Vaughan and Maggi will be joined by Nick Sherman on the board of commissioners at a salary board reorganization meeting with a new solicitor.

The commissioners, as 2019 began, paid the county solicitor’s law firm, Goldfarb, Posner, Beck, DeHaven and Drewitz, $142,575.

DeHaven stressed that he will continue to practice law.

He also looked back on one of the major issues of his tenure that began with the McGuffey and Washington school districts bringing a mandamus action in Washington County Court in 2008 that eventually led to a countywide property reassessment. The commissioners appealed court decisions in the case in an attempt to avoid the mandate, but they awarded a $6.9 million contract in 2013 after the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The cost of the reassessment was borne, not by incurring debt through a bond issue, but by revenues in the general fund from oil and natural gas extracted from beneath county-owned real estate. The commissioners have often grumbled that money could have been spent on other causes.

He also mentioned Scott Fergus who served as county administrator during most of the 16 years.

Fergus’ seat at the conference table was empty Wednesday morning as it has been for the past several months due to the director of administration’s medical leave.

“The advice and experience Scott offered as a former county commissioner and as an attorney was invaluable.” DeHaven said.