Intergovernmental committee reviews Legal Defenders contract renewal and schedules NOPEC aggregation public hearings

Chair Brandenburg presented a resolution to renew the agreement between the City of Green and the Summit County Legal Defenders Office covering 2026, and he reviewed two companion ordinances to join the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council (NOPEC) electricity aggregation program and approve its governance plan.

Law Director Dean read an email from the Legal Defenders office outlining two changes in the 2026 agreement. "Attached is the 2026 contract for legal services. There are 2 main changes I want to point out. The 1st is the fee per case. The fee is now $2.50 per case, which is a $20 increase from last year," Dean read from the message. The committee also heard staff report that the city spent $1,146.60 on appointed-defense services in 2025.

Brandenburg said the two NOPEC ordinances must be adopted together under state law; a city-hosted outreach session had three residents and an additional public hearing on the NOPEC items is scheduled for the night council meets. Committee members deferred detailed questions to the regular meeting and indicated they were comfortable scheduling the public hearing.

Transcript notes contain inconsistent numeric references for defender fees (committee remarks elsewhere referred to $45 and $250 figures). The committee record presented both the email text (read by the Law Director) and other committee remarks; the committee did not finalize the contract in committee and will address it at the regular meeting.