Votes at a glance: Riley County Commission approves routine contracts, corrections and attorney fee for tax-foreclosure representation

The Riley County Commission on Feb. 13 approved several routine contractual and administrative items, holding votes on appraiser services, a consultant contract amendment, tax-roll corrections, personnel action and attorney fees tied to an ongoing tax-foreclosure case.

Key items approved by unanimous voice vote:

- Appraisers real estate sales data search service agreement and associated contractual provisions for Thomas Billetti (moved and seconded; outcome: approved).

- Updated contractual provisions amendment for services with Terracon Consultant (moved and seconded; outcome: approved).

- Tax roll corrections as presented (moved and seconded; outcome: approved).

- Employee action: hire of James Campbell, Parks and Grounds Tech 1 (motion presented for signature; outcome: recorded).

- Approval of minutes from the Feb. 10 Riley County Commission meeting (moved, seconded and approved).

- Contract for attorney fees in connection with the county’s tax-foreclosure case: the county will engage Summer Dirks to provide guardian ad litem and military-attorney representation where needed for a flat fee of $750; the contract was moved, seconded and approved. The presenting staff member said the foreclosure case involves 85 properties with $7,752,876 in outstanding taxes (see separate item in meeting record).

Procedural notes: The commission recessed into executive session to discuss potential litigation and returned to open session at the time stated on the record. Commissioners said the record should reflect that no binding action was taken during executive session.

Vote tallies were recorded by voice with commissioners responding “Aye” to the roll call; individual named roll-call tallies were not recorded in the public minutes during the Feb. 13 session.