City Council Chooses ‘Meeting’ For Selection Of Legal Counsel
City Council Chooses ‘Meeting’ For Selection Of Legal Counsel
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
City Council Chooses ‘Meeting’ For Selection Of Legal CounselThe difference between a public hearing and a public meeting extended the Warsaw Common Council’s discussion on having access to its own legal counsel by at least two more weeks.
At the council’s meeting Monday, Mayor Joe Thallemer brought up Ordinance 2020-03-05, regarding the council’s independent legal counsel, for a second reading. The first reading was in March, and the ordinance states the council will decide on hiring legal counsel at a public hearing.
City attorney Scott Reust told the council, “Statute defines what a public meeting is, and at a public meeting, the public is allowed to attend and record. Indiana Open Door Law requires public meetings to be able to be attended by the public and recorded by the public. Public hearings are a little bit different. In a public hearing, you are guaranteed the opportunity to speak if you are from the public.”
He said when he and the council’s legal counsel committee met to put the ordinance together, the council members did not specifically state whether it should be a public meeting or hearing when they discuss hiring legal counsel. Reust said he put public hearing in the ordinance, but it should be up to the council if they want a public hearing or meeting on the issue.
“I think it’s fair for me to say we never contemplated amongst ourselves the difference between whether we intended it to say public meeting or public hearing. That was my word, ‘hearing,’ but there’s confusion and I think it should be cleared up before we pass the ordinance,” Reust said.
He pointed out that the council sometimes use hearing and meeting interchangeably and often let the public speak at meetings though the council legally doesn’t have to.
“But that word ‘hearing’ does have some legal consequence if we leave it in as ‘hearing,’” Reust said.
Thallemer confirmed if there are certain procedures that require by statute a public hearing, and Reust said that was correct. Thallemer asked if the council’s legal counsel ordinance does not require a public hearing.
Reust responded, “As we talked before, we’re breaking new ground on this. This is a compromise I think between what we thought people would want to move forward with, how outside legal counsel would be obtained and how to best serve, showing that it was the will of the entire council after a vote at the least of a public meeting. But we did not specifically have a discussion whether we wanted to guarantee the public the right to speak at that meeting or if it would be termed a hearing or not.”
He said a public hearing requires additional guarantees to the public, such as notice requirements and the opportunity to speak.
Thallemer said that the March 16 meeting minutes notes that the ordinance was presented then and authorized the council to contract for professional services for independent legal advice. It was approved on first reading, with Councilman Jeff Grose the only person voting against it.
Reust said if the council was approving the ordinance “as is,” as a public hearing, the second reading could have been held Monday night. If the council changed hearing to meeting, “probably it would be in everybody’s best interest to have a new ordinance or an amended ordinance that would be required to have” two readings.
“They’re just passing an ordinance tonight on how in the future, if they were to hire somebody, how they would do it. There’s never been presented, yet, at a meeting that they’re hiring somebody. This just approves the ordinance that if they were then to come later to request (legal counsel), then they would follow these protocols. They would ask council president to put it on the agenda that they want to hire an attorney for a specific reason. They would come and either have a public hearing or a public meeting about whether they were hiring outside counsel for a specific reason,” Reust explained.
He said Monday’s ordinance doesn’t retain any legal counsel, it just gives the council ground rules for moving forward if there comes such a time the council wants its own legal counsel other than the city’s attorney.
Councilman Mike Klondaris, who served on the legal counsel committee, said, “The devil is in the details, and one word makes a big difference here as you pointed out.” He said it should be a public meeting.
Cindy Dobbins, councilwoman, concurred. She said she would like the ordinance to change from public hearing to meeting.
Councilwoman Diane Quance, who also served on the committee, said the committee’s intention was that it be discussed among the council members. “I don’t recall ever discussing wanting the public to tell us whether or not we wanted to hire an attorney,” she said.
Council President Jack Wilhite, who served on the committee after former Councilman Ron Shoemaker was no longer on the council and committee, agreed. Councilmen Josh Finch agreed.
Grose opposed changing it from a public hearing to meeting.
“We’re blazing the trail, it’s new. At this point in the process, it would only be explaining to the public why a council member or group of council members would want a lawyer. The details would not be brought into it. It would just be, ‘Here’s what we’re doing,’” Grose said. “I also would say that not only blazing the trail, but we’re budgeting money for this, and I just think if we said we don’t the people to be able to speak on this, I just think it would be the wrong message.”
Dobbins said the council makes other decisions regarding larger sums of money without public input. Finch said the council usually lets the public speak at council meetings, not just hearings.
Reust reminded the council that it was blazing a new trail on this issue because Class 3 cities, like Warsaw, usually don’t have a separate attorney for its city council. Bigger cities like South Bend, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis do.
Wilhite made a motion to amend the ordinance to change every reference of public hearing to public meeting, and his motion was approved 6-1, with Grose against. Quance then made the motion to approve the amended ordinance on first reading, which was approved by the same vote.
The council will be asked to approve the ordinance on second (final) reading at its next meeting in July.
