FAIRMONT– A number of changes were discussed or made to the Fairmont City Council agenda on Monday before the council jumped into the relatively brief meeting.

Mayor Lee Baarts said both items under new business, a license agreement for 2710 Albion Avenue and interim city administrator update, needed to be removed. The first due to legal reasons and the second because the candidate the council would be tasked with appointing as interim city administrator had pulled his application.

Later in the meeting, Baarts said that after the agenda was sent out late last week to the council with the approval for the contract on it, he heard back from the individual who had said he “had a change of heart” and wished to pull his application.

“I have an email from him I can share with council…,” Baarts said.

Council Member Michele Miller, who is on the hiring committee along with Baarts, said, “part of the reason the interim isn’t coming is because he wanted at least six months and we didn’t know that we would need an interim for six months.”

Baarts shared that GovHR USA, the firm the city is using in its search for both an interim and full-time city administrator, said last Friday was the last day for the full-time city administrator search.

Miller said they currently have 14 applicants and while it’s a relatively small pool, they feel good about it.

Before the agenda was approved on Monday, Council Member Britney Kawecki asked that approval of the payment of the July 2023 bills be removed from under the consent agenda for discussion.

With the absence of an administrator, and in the absence of City Clerk Patty Monsen, Baarts asked Public Works Director, Matthew York, whether the item should be moved. York said the item could be open for conversation with a motion.

Council Member Wayne Hasek seconded Kawecki’s motion for discussion.

“Once again I think it’s important that we talk about the bill from Taft (the city’s bond council). As I stated at the last council meeting, I plan on making a motion for us as council… that letters or demands of legal nature that we receive go to legal council for consideration first,” Kawecki said.

Kawecki was referring to a large bill the council received in response to a letter it received from a local group about the proposed community center. The city was charged a substantial amount for having its legal advisors read the letter.

On Monday Kawecki said she believes legal council should in the future provide a legal opinion regarding validity first, along with an estimated cost so the city council can decide if it wants to move forward.

“I think we as council did a great disservice to the citizens of Fairmont,” Kawecki said.

She also brought up issues with how long Taft has been involved with working on the community center and said she was told by a staff member with Flaherty & Hood (the city’s attorney) that they have not been involved with the community center project.

“My concern was that Taft is a much high rate and Flaherty & Hood is an experienced law firm and that’s what they sold us on, that they have attorneys who can handle anything we brought to them,” Kawecki said.

She said along with her motion to pull the bills from the consent agenda, she would like to request a detailed bill from Taft explaining the charges.

Council Member Jay Maynard said that he had concerns about pulling the bills for discussion because that made it seem like the council was considering not paying a legal bill for services that have already incurred, whether it was right or not.

“If we don’t pay this bill, then our bond council has reason not to do anymore work for us on the community center and I don’t think we need to put ourself in that position,” Maynard said.

He added that he, too, was unhappy with paying $30,000 for the bill, but said he saw no reason for pulling the bills to further discuss it.

Kawecki expressed frustration because in the absence of a city administrator right now, the council cannot ask for items to be added to the agenda. She said the only way to bring the matter up is to pull it from the consent agenda to discuss it.

Baarts asked whether the item could be added to a future agenda. Maynard said that it would be out of order.

Baarts asked Cara Brown with Flaherty & Hood what her opinion was. Brown said, “we have not been involved in the community center at all. Flaherty & Hood has not done any work related to the community center beyond communicating with city staff on a very preliminary basis.”

She said Flaherty & Hood could have been involved, but was not authorized to be involved, as per conversations and decisions made by the previous city administrator and the city finance director.

“We were aware of the letter and briefly looked at it… but were not involved with this specific letter or the community center in any way,” Brown said.

Regarding the question about the agenda and the bills, Brown said the item could be added under new business.

In a roll call vote, the motion to move the bills and place the item under new business failed 3-1 with Council Members Maynard, Hasek and Miller opposed. The motion failed. The agenda was approved 3-1 with Kawecki opposed.

In other news:

— The council heard a presentation from John and Matt Siggerud of Emerald Fire Farms , who have purchased the former Casey’s building on North State Street. The two plan to turn the space into a retail cannabis facility and wanted to explain their business model to the council and ask if it had any questions.

— The council approved the adoption of ordinance 2023-02, rural and urban service districts, with the removal of two parcels.