The Port Orchard City Council is going to have a hard time justifying the renewal of its contract with a paid political lobbyist.

When Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs was retained last year at a cost of $25,000, Mayor Lary Coppola was clear about the city’s expectations.

“We told them they needed to pay for themselves,” he said. “They needed to bring more state revenue to Port Orchard than we were paying them.”

By that standard, it’s going to be a tough sell.

A company spokesman cited a $950,000 appropriation for the De Kalb Street Pier as evidence the company earned its keep.

The Legislature also passed bills near and dear to the heart of city leaders that would restrict its liability in the case of specious records requests and limit Planning Commission terms to four years instead of six.

But while the latter two bills could conceivably save the city a fair amount of money, neither was targeted specifically to Port Orchard.

Consequently, it’s hard to determine whether the city’s paid lobbyist made any real contribution toward getting them passed or is simply taking credit for a pair of bills that would have won approval anyway.

Likewise, getting $950,000 for the pier into the state budget was no small matter. But since Rep. Jan Angel (R-Port Orchard) and Sen. Derek Kilmer (D-Gig Harbor) would have pushed for the money with or without the lobbyist’s help, it’s again worth wondering whether Gordon Thomas was a player in the process or just an observer.

At this point it’s not clear, and we’re not suggesting we have the answer.

But at $25,000 a year to the city’s taxpayers, it’s certainly worth asking the question.