Rathdrum content with contracting legal services
RATHDRUM - Rathdrum contracts its legal services for both civil and criminal matters and officials believe that will continue to be the case in the near future.
"We are too small yet to have a full-time attorney, so we continue to use one contractually," said Brett Boyer, city administrator.
Rathdrum had a population of 7,090 in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Rathdrum contracts with the Coeur d'Alene office of Hawley Troxell for its civil and regular city business matters, including city council and planning and zoning meetings. John Cafferty serves as Hawley Troxell's primary attorney at the city meetings.
The rate Hawley Troxell charges the city is $120 per hour. The city previously tapped Jerry Mason and Nancy Stricklin of Mason and Stricklin before it dissolved more than a year ago.
"Over the years, the city has received excellent legal services from the premier experts in Idaho municipal law at a reduced hourly rate from what they could charge on the market," Boyer said. "As our long-term attorneys (Mason and Stricklin) transitioned out of their practice, we did shop around and compared fees and looked at different attorneys.
"After a trial period with our new attorney - no pun intended - we have continued using him and are confident based on our shopping around that their fees are very reasonable."
The city has budgeted $55,000 for the year for civil matters.
Melissa Taylor, the city's clerk, said that, on occasion, the city will need to seek other counsel on matters not handled by Hawley Troxell.
That was the case last year when the city spent $36,059 for services provided by the Boise firm of Givens Pursley during litigation that secured the city's access to its Rathdrum Mountain property. The city is now moving toward the public input phase of how to selectively develop the site for recreational purposes.
To handle prosecuting misdemeanor crimes, the city taps Rathdrum attorney Tim Van Valin and budgeted $67,473 for the year for his services. Van Valin handled 245 misdemeanor cases in 2014.
Taylor said she expects Rathdrum's legal fees to remain about the same this year. She said the city is not expecting any non-typical legal fees this year as it had last year.
"The number of cases and issues facing the city has been about the same the past couple years," she said. "One item that causes our legal fees to increase is when we seen an increase in development to review and documents to prepare, but fees are paid (by developers) to help cover those increases."