GREENFIELD — Over the past year, the city has incurred about $35,000 in legal fees relating to the public involvement process for the environmental cleanup at the former Lunt Silversmiths property, according to the city’s response to a public records request.

The Recorder’s request for itemized invoices for legal services related to the environmental cleanup at 298 Federal St. followed objections raised by residents earlier this summer that taxpayer dollars were spent in fiscal year 2023 on legal fees regarding the Public Involvement Plan, despite what residents have described as a “no public involvement process” for the property.

Concerns about the status of the site’s environmental cleanup entered the limelight in October 2021 when the property was brought before City Council to declare it surplus and authorize a sale by the mayor. In particular, there is concern about contamination levels of trichloroethylene (TCE).

The nonprofit Lunt Neighborhood Action Group was subsequently formed in September 2022 with the intention of hiring an independent, licensed site professional, citing a lack of trust in the work completed by Bruce Nickelsen of O’Reilly, Talbot & Okun. Prior to that, the state Department of Environmental Protection designated the property as a Public Involvement Plan, or PIP, site.

By and large, the $35,000 in legal services consisted of reviewing correspondence and emailing or calling the mayor, other city officials, Nickelsen and Attorney Raipher Pellegrino of 401 Liberty St. LLC, which is interested in buying the property on Federal Street.

Items related explicitly to the PIP process, meanwhile, included emails sent to Pellegrino and Nickelsen relating to a PIP/Department of Environmental Protection meeting in June, watching a PIP/DEP meeting, researching PIP activities and PIP regulations, emailing Nickelsen regarding PIP complaints, and emailing the LLC regarding the revised scope of work and the PIP group’s requested extension.

After reviewing the unredacted legal invoices, lead petitioner Glen Ayers said he feels “pretty strongly” that the city “shouldn’t have spent any money on an attorney.” Rather, he feels the money could have been better spent on an independent licensed site professional, and that hiring an attorney was a way to circumvent the public process.

“This is not litigation,” said Ayers, a retired health agent who plans to apply for a grant through the Lunt Neighborhood Action Group to hire an independent facilitator to work with the PIP group.

The property in question — which the city leases to 401 Liberty St., a limited liability company that in turn has active subleases with Behavioral Health Network and Clinical & Support Options — has an agreement that gives the company the option to purchase. Mayor Roxann Wedegartner previously explained that the city took the property for back taxes not long before 2015. Until 2009, when the business closed, it was home to a manufacturer of sterling silver spoons, forks, cups and other items.

Wedegartner explained in a column published in February 2022 that under the terms of the lease, the lessee, 401 Liberty St. LLC, has taken the lead and expense of the cleanup under a set of regulations called the Massachusetts Contingency Plan. This set of regulations enables a “privatized program” of cleanup of contaminated sites in Massachusetts, allowing the private sector to take responsibility for remedial obligations.

City councilors and residents have expressed concern on various occasions, however, that the lessee is not committed to the cleanup of the property.

“So far, the city has spent [$35,000] on what they call the PIP process, when there has been no PIP process, period. None,” Ayers said. “There has been no public involvement in the Lunt cleanup process.”

At a City Council meeting earlier this summer, during which the authorization was requested to pay legal bills, councilors were also interested in better understanding the $35,000 for legal services.

Although the total bill for legal services — which included more than just the PIP legal services — was ultimately approved for payment with one “no” vote from Precinct 8 Councilor Doug Mayo and an abstention from Precinct 1 Councilor Katherine Golub, several councilors, including Precinct 5 Councilor Marianne Bullock, voiced an interest in seeing “invoice dates and work associated with an invoice.”

The relevant invoices were returned almost entirely redacted when first requested by the Recorder in June. After appealing to the supervisor of records in the state’s Public Records Division, a revised response with “targeted redactions” was provided last week by Attorney Jesse W. Belcher-Timme of Doherty Wallace Pillsbury & Murphy P.C., which represents the city. The response contained significantly fewer redactions than the one received in June.

“With respect to redactions, the only portions of time entries contained in the invoices have been redacted are those sections that described the substance of communications between Attorney Robert Quinn and city officials, or tasks that were done at the direction of the city where the disclosure of those tasks would divulge privileged communications or legal strategy,” Belcher-Timme wrote in a letter to a reporter.

According to a “Privilege Log” provided with the documents, all redactions were made on the grounds of attorney-client privilege, which is protected under the Massachusetts Public Records Law.

Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.