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Committee discusses ordinance to clarify city-attorney and judge appointment rules
Summary
Members discussed whether the city attorney should remain an employee under a two-year contract (per MCA) or be treated as an outsourced/contracted position; staff recommended drafting an ordinance or resolution to explicitly spell out the city's approach and to clean up appointment practices for the city judge.
Staff briefed the committee on the status of the city attorney appointment and whether the role must be a two-year employee under MCA or may be structured as a contracted service. Staff said counsel recommended drafting an ordinance describing how the city wishes to proceed because state code (MCA) sets a default that can be modified by ordinance.
"His recommendation was we just make our own resolution to describe how we want to do in the in the city," a staff member said, and later explained: "It's an ordinance because, basically, what you're doing is so as a self governing city, we can make rules about anything we want." Members noted the city has historically appointed rather than elected a city judge and that a formal ordinance would clean up the discrepancy between practice and code.
The committee asked staff to prepare a draft ordinance or resolution to bring to council that clarifies whether the city attorney is an employee or contracted service and whether the judge is appointed or elected under local ordinance. Staff said they would return with proposed language for council consideration.
