MONTICELLO – Former Orange County Court Judge Robert Freehill was appointed the new Sullivan County Attorney at the Legislature meeting on Thursday, February 15. 

He was appointed to the role by a vote of 6-3 and had served as Acting Assistant County Attorney since the beginning of the year after former County Attorney Michael McGuire’s term was not renewed. The position is for a yearly salary of $180,920. 

District 2 Legislator and Chair Nadia Rasjz said that while several well-qualified candidates had applied to the role when they opened up with advertisements and interviewing various attorneys, they decided to go with their Acting Assistant County Attorney to be their new County Attorney. 

“The County Legislature has the right to appoint a County Attorney,” Rasjz said. “I want to thank Robert [Freehill] and Tom [Cawley] for holding down the fort. Tom has been with us a very long time and I appreciate everything he has done. I look forward to working with them.”

District 1 Legislator Matt McPhillips, District 3 Legislator Brian McPhillips and District 5 Legislator Cat Scott voted no to Freehill being appointed to County Attorney. However, they said that it did not have anything to do with Freehill as a candidate, just the process in which it happened. 

“We specifically had candidates apply and then appointed someone who hadn’t gone through the same process and not originally from [Sullivan County],” Brian McPhillips said. 

Both Brian and Matt McPhillips said that there were about 8 or 9 candidates to apply for the position. 

Matt McPhillips told the Democrat that one of the reasons that they had made Freehill the interim County Attorney was because he hadn’t applied and they didn’t want to give someone a leg up.

“That’s where I didn’t agree with that,” Matt McPhillips noted. “Nothing against Bob, I think he’ll do a great job and I think he’s a really great guy. I look forward to working with him. But just regarding the process itself, it didn’t sit well with me.

“At the end of the day, Nadia [Rajsz] is right, that we do have the authority to appoint,” he continued. “For me, I just wanted to make sure it was someone who had gone through a fair process.”