From left, council members Cindy Dobbins, Jack Wilhite, Jeff Grose, Ron Shoemaker, Diane Quance and Jerry Frush. Michael Klondaris was hidden from view. InkFreeNews photo by Dan Spalding.

WARSAW — City Council took a step toward establishing its own legal counsel Monday night, Oct. 21.

While the council is still working on guidelines on how it would access and work with an outside attorney, it passed a resolution supporting the idea of contracting with an attorney.

The idea of having a legal source that council could turn to first came up earlier this year as council members grappled with concerns over Warsaw Police Chief Scott Whitaker’s handling of an apparent drunk driving incident while he was off duty.

Even though that issue has been resolved and the council has indicated that it has no outstanding issues it seeks to review, council appears to have warmed up to the idea of having an outside voice and has set aside $12,000 to pay for legal services for 2020.

Monday night’s resolution essentially affirms the council’s right to do so under existing Indiana code, Council President Diane Quance said.

“We felt this was an important enough step that it should be discussed publicly and that people will have input into it,” Quance said.

Councilman Jeff Grose cast the one dissenting vote. Quance said she was pleased with the 6-1 vote and pointed out that some of Councilman Jeff Grose’s concerns are being addressed as they work on the policy.

Grose has expressed various concerns about how the policy would be structured and questioned the need for an outside counsel when other options exist.

The move to contract with a council attorney is unchartered territory for the city and other similar-sized cities in Indiana, according to Quance, who has looked into the history of such moves.

While city councils in larger cities, such as Class 1 (Indianapolis) or Class 2, including South Bend or Fort Wayne, have a history of using their own attorneys, smaller cities in class 3 have never apparently opted to use one.

A task force made up of Quance and council members Ron Shoemaker and Michael Klondaris have been looking to develop guidelines on how the council would work with the attorney. Those plans will then be presented to the full council for its review.

Quance said they’ve been turning to city attorney Scott Reust and an outside attorney for suggestions.

Council members have repeatedly said they have no problems with Reust and that the move is in response to interest in having an independent source.

But much still needs to be hashed out. Quance said they are looking at who would have the authority to engage the attorney, what would be the process of deciding access to the attorney is needed and how the money to pay for the attorney would be authorized.

She said they want to craft a policy so that one or two council members could not authorize spending money or appear to be speaking for the entire council.

“That’s the sticky part because since this hasn’t been done before in this kind of setting, we’re trying to get a definitive answer on public access laws and how we could go about doing that,” she said.

Council is seeking to have a contract presented for approval by the Board of Works and Safety by the end of the year.

Quance added, “We have some time here before the end of the year to make sure that we address concerns.”

If the council uses the available money and wants to spend more, it would need to seek an additional appropriation in a public meeting, Quance said.

In other matters:

• Council gave approval to establishing the Gatke Riverfront Development district. The move opens the door for an unidentified entity to apply for a riverfront district alcohol license.
• Council approved salary ordinances for police, fire and elected officials as well as other city workers.
• Council was informed that NIPSCO has indicated new street lights along the revamped portion of East Market Street will be powered up by the end of the week.