The City Council had planned on introducing local laws to amend the City Charter Thursday so that they could hire independent counsels for both majority and minority members but were unable to do so because of a section of the charter that requires legislation to amend the document be in the hands of council members for a full seven days before it is acted upon.

The council met to discuss the matter Monday night and legislation was not sent to council members until Tuesday.

The local laws would have allowed both political parties to hire their own attorney, if they chose, and also would have amended the corporation counsel's need to act as their legal advisor.

The full story can be found here, which also features a short video of Councilman Mark McGrath, R-District 2, talking about his opposition to hiring a minority attorney (we know it's dark but we're still learning how to do this kind of stuff).

Further background on the issues can also be found here and here.