Board narrows Deer Grove EMS legal-request authority, limits billable time per request

The board considered amendments to the Deer Grove intergovernmental agreement that seek to constrain how individual commission members may engage district legal counsel. Staff and commissioners reported that ad-hoc requests to EMS counsel had produced unexpectedly large legal bills; the total legal billing year-to-date was described in the meeting as over $7,000. To reduce uncoordinated legal spending and to preserve joint governance, the revised IGA language directs that the commission chair or EMS chief forward legal issues to the full commission for awareness, and places a per-request limit on billable time tied to a required commission review before additional legal work proceeds.