Editor:

County Commissioner William O'Gurek has made misleading comments about Portnoff Law Associates in regard to his lawsuit against the Panther Valley School District ("Court won't order payment of retroactive commissions," July 11, 2013).The commissioner has long demonstrated a seemingly personal vendetta against Portnoff Law Associates through name calling and misrepresentations. Recently, he provided information about our fees using misleading language to imply those fees were earned in Carbon County when, in actuality, those figures reflected our statewide work.School districts hire Portnoff because of our strong collection rate, our legal ability to pass our fees onto the delinquent property owner, and our mechanism that enables those with true economic hardships to make payment arrangements without incurring our fees.Mr. O'Gurek's lawsuit was a bully tactic to force the school district to use the Tax Claim Bureau. The lawsuit did clarify one thing Mr. O'Gurek should appreciate: regardless of who collects the district's delinquent taxes, the Tax Claim Bureau is entitled to a five percent commission.He should view this as a win-win situation: Portnoff does the work, the district recovers delinquencies much faster than the County is able to collect, and the Tax Claim Bureau gets money for nothing.Michelle R. PortnoffPresident, Portnoff Law Associates