Acting Boulder City attorney’s contract held up
State probing complaint of meetings law violation
Boulder City’s acting city attorney is exercising an “abundance of caution” in negotiating his full-time contract, which is costing the city tens of thousands of dollars.
Since being appointed city attorney in a divided vote by the City Council on Sept. 26, Steve Morris has continued to work as an independent contractor and is earning a minimum of 15 hours per week at a rate of $325 per hour.
But Morris’ contract with the city is being held up because the Nevada attorney general’s office is investigating complaints that a Sept. 20 meeting when city attorney candidates were interviewed violated the open meetings law.
“It’s more of just being prudent in how we proceed because if we proceeded with my contract with those complaints outstanding, then there’s still an open issue there, and it would likely be that those … citizens that have filed these complaints could say, ‘Wait a sec. This contract is premature because we have a complaint with the attorney seeking to void this decision,’” Morris said.
The city has brought in a third party to create a contract proposal.
“We directed staff to engage a neutral third party consultant to handle those negotiations, in part, at least, so that individual council members wouldn’t be accused of bias or involved in the process in any way,” Mayor Rod Woodbury said.
If the attorney general’s office determines that the open meeting law was violated and the council’s decision becomes void, the City Council would have to redo the selection process, Morris said.
“The City Council, with staff ’s assistance, would then have to collectively decide what to do next based on the information available,” Woodbury said.
Monica Moazez, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said the agency could not comment on pending open meeting law investigations.
Morris’ initial contract, signed in October 2012, states that he is to be paid a fixed yearly fee of $40,000 for at least five hours of work on Wednesdays and that he would primarily be involved with contract review and litigation.
For any services outside his five hours of work, the city would pay Morris his hourly rate, which is $325 per hour.
City records show Morris was paid $564,676.36 in the three-year period between July 2014 and July 2017. Morris said the excess amount is for his work with litigation issues for the city, per his contract.
He also was reimbursed for $15,000 in expenses associated with that litigation.
Morris was appointed acting city attorney at the June 28 council meeting to replace former City Attorney Dave Olsen, who retired June 30. Olsen was paid $196,393 in salary and benefits for 2016, according to Transparent Nevada.
Contact reporter Celia Shortt Goodyear at cgoodyear@ bouldercityreview.com or at 702586-9401. Follow her on Twitter @ csgoodyear.