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Fairmont, City Attorney Bloomquist to part ways

FAIRMONT — One week after a combative Fairmont City Council work session debating the merits of maintaining the city’s in-house legal counsel versus contracting for legal service, the council made a decision after a lengthy closed session Monday to sever ties with Elizabeth Bloomquist, who has served as City Attorney for more than 30 years.

“The council is split, and that includes me,” Mayor Debbie Foster announced at the end of the closed session to evaluate the attorney’s job performance.

The mayor is a non-voting position, except in the case of a tie or in personnel matters.

“Three people are very satisfied with the city attorney’s evaluation, and three people are dissatisfied,” Foster noted.

Foster and council members Bruce Peters and Wayne Hasek confirmed they are the three who support Bloomquist’s job performance, meaning Tom Hawkins, Randy Lubenow and Ruth Cyphers are dissatisfied. No explanations were given as to why there is satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

“How we have decided to proceed as a group … is for the council to give direction to the city administrator along with the mayor and a council member to negotiate a separation agreement with the City Attorney for a council vote at our next council meeting, which will be May 13. That is supported by the council as a whole as far as where we go from here,” Foster said.

She then asked for Bloomquist’s input on which council member should be involved in the separation negotiations.

Hawkins and Lubenow were criticized at last week’s work session for telling Bloomquist on April 4 that they would be calling for a vote at the April 8 council meeting to open bidding for contracted legal services, effectively terminating her position. Hawkins defended the move, calling it a courtesy, but other council members questioned how they could vote on something that had never been discussed by the current council.

Members of the public also weighed in on the topic during the open discussion portion of Monday’s meeting.

Jodie Whitmore reminded council members that they were elected to represent the citizens of Fairmont.

“You don’t represent yourselves here,” she said. “I am hard-pressed to believe that you are receiving phone calls other than from a select few people requesting what is happening right now.”

Ralph McMillan reiterated Whitmore’s comments.

“It’s an embarrassment to the city of Fairmont to have council members acting the way they did,” he said. “I think having closed door meetings on a subject is ludicrous. You people are not the most important people in the city. You were elected by people like us.”

McMillan then offered a challenge to Fairmont residents.

“You need to get off your butts,” he said. “The next time we have an election, do a little research. This business of having no opposition is crazy. We need better representation than what we have right now.”

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