The Clearwater City Council Monday voted to delay payment on some invoices to the city attorney because of questions about what is covered in their contract.
The city entered into a contract with Gries Lenhardt Allen in April where the city pays $500 a month for general city business, not including litigation, zoning, permit applications or charges passed on by the city to a third party.
Monday, Councilman Richard Petty said he felt some of the billed charges should have been covered in the $6,000 annual retainer the city pays.
“If you look at these, a lot of them are general and it’s still over $500 a month, so I don’t know if our contract is doing anything,” he said.
Petty said general municipal business should be covered, and any legal fees that are eventually passed on to third parties, like business for the new Kwik Trip station, are billed to the city first.
One invoice is listed as “conference call, general.” Another involves a review of an orderly annexation agreement with Clearwater Twp.
“The orderly annexation area - that’s only going to be us. We know we’ll never be billing anybody for that,” he said. “Would that be general work? Assuming it is, that alone is already $535 and it’s not close to done.”
Petty asked what would happen if the city paid invoices totalling $6,000 in the first four months of a year.
“We can’t then not get services for the next eight months,” he said. “He’d have to provide those and he’s already been paid in full.”
Councilman Rollie Lange said the city couldn’t just decide not to pay their attorney.
“I think we need to pay our attorney and then settle up,” he said.
Mayor Pete Edmonson said it wasn’t unusual for the council to pull an invoice if they had questions, like they’ve done with the city engineer at times.
In a 3-1-1 vote, the council directed Administrator Kevin Kress to get in contact with the attorney to discuss the invoices so they can be addressed at the November council meeting.
Other Business
The council approved liquor license renewals for Clearwater Enterprises, Inc., American Legion Post 323, Brothers and One, Inc., LTWIG, Inc., Clearwater Development, Inc. and Kaddi Shack, LLC.
The council passed a resolution adopting liens for unpaid charges for 23 properties totalling $8,073.29. The amounts will be forwarded to the county auditor to be added to property taxes.
