City Council Meeting Date: June 4, 2019
To: Mayor and City Council
From: Ben Martig, City Administrator
Title
Discussion of Civil and Criminal Prosecution Contract Extensions.
Body
Action Requested:
The Northfield City Council discuss Civil and Criminal Prosecution Contract Extensions.
Summary Report:
The City approved five-year agreements with Flaherty & Hood for Civil Legal Services (attachment 1) and Eckberg Lammers for Criminal Prosecution Legal Services (attachment 2) on July 8, 2014. The current contracts have ending dates as follows:
* Flaherty & Hood June 30, 2019
* Eckberg Lammers July 31, 2019
Both contracts contain similar Term and Termination language allowing the agreements to continue past the dates listed by mutual written agreement of the Law Firm and the City. The current agreements may be terminated by the City at any time.
Staff recommends extension of both contracts. Staff does not recommend going through an RFP process at this time for the following reasons: Staff is satisfied with existing representation; there are several legal issues that the existing attorneys are involved in and up to speed on; and the existing workload of staff most directly involved with the attorneys. Staff would be satisfied with a three-year extension, a five-year extension, or an extension that continues in effect until such time as either party terminates the agreement. All of the contracts will have a 30-day termination clause. The potential purpose of a three or five-year agreement would be that it would require another review and look at the services, whereas the open extension of contract would require a decision to review by the City Council or be brought forward by staff. Otherwise, they would all be the same in content.
The City Council likely does not have as much working familiarity with Eckberg-Lammers as it relates to criminal prosecution. Therefore, the Police Department has attached summaries of cases from 2016-2019 (attach...
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