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Council debates when to use outside lawyers as data-practices policy sits online
Summary
Members discussed the city’s data-practices policy and whether to route legal questions through the administrator before hiring outside counsel; the legal budget was noted to include roughly $6,000 for county prosecution within a $30,000 line item.
Council reviewed the data-practices policy and broader legal-expenditure approach. One council member suggested filtering queries through the city administrator (Chris Schmidt) before engaging outside counsel to conserve the $30,000 legal line, which also covers about $6,000 for the county prosecutor’s office.
"I'd like to see concerns for the year... bounce it off 1 of our people before we escalate to, for just a little bit of time," a council member said, urging internal review before paying outside attorneys. Staff confirmed that other communities pay widely varying flat fees for legal services and that the city's legal budget covers prosecution costs as well as outside counsel. Council agreed informally that the lawyer should be a last resort and asked staff to increase internal screening before legal escalation.
