Agenda Packets - 2003/07/07 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Item No: WS-1 Meeting Date: July 7, 2003 Type of Business: Worksession City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, Acting City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Discuss Kennedy & Graven Retainer Agreement and Identify Expectations Introduction: At the Council meeting on June 23, 2003, staff presented a summary report regarding the interviews conducted of the six city attorney firm finalists on Thursday, June 12, 2003. The Council discussed which firms it wanted to invite back to the July worksession for follow-up interviews and decided that it wanted to retain Kennedy & Graven’s services. City Attorney Scott Riggs was then invited to attend the worksession to discuss the retainer agreement and to address expectations and possibilities for reducing the City’s overall legal expenditures. Discussion: Attached please find the proposed retainer agreement from Kennedy & Graven, which appears to be substantially similar (in terms of which services are covered or not covered) as the one executed in 1999 (also attached for the Council’s reference.) The Department Heads recommend adding the following items to the retainer agreement: 1. Regular training for staff in areas including, but not limited to, human resource issues, sexual harassment, city government procedures, employee discipline procedures, workers compensation, OSHA issues. 2. Occasional attendance at staff meetings as directed by the City Clerk/Administrator. 3. Legal updates, alerts & opinions to staff on issues affecting the city. 4. Proactive advice as to our City Code and personnel policies In addition, the retainer should better articulate the response process to be more consistent with the City’s expectations. At a minimum, staff should know the City Attorney’s schedule (in a general sense, at least) insofar as it would relate to the timeliness of a response. If the attorney is out of the office every Thursday, for example, that would be helpful to know in advance. What should the maximum amount of time be before a response is received? I would propose that a “same day” response should be the expectation, with calls or e -mails in the afternoon returned the next morning. If the attorney is unable to answer the questions or provide the opinion in this time frame, then a response indicating as much should be received as identified above with an indication as to how much time it would take to provide the requested information.