BCC Says NO to Paying Commissioner Doug Underhill's Legal Fees

The BCC said no to paying for Commissioner Doug Underhill's legal fees at our regular meeting last night....

There was a discussion item on last night's BCC agenda, the subject of which was the payment of legal fees for Commissioner Doug Underhill.  The board had previously rejected the idea of paying these fees prior to the case being heard in circuit court.

The local court case happened and the judge ruled in favor of Commissioner Underhill.

$15,600.00 in fees and costs were presented last night for the board to consider paying.  The wrinkle now for me is the fact that an appeal to the district court of appeals has been filed in this case.

 Absent that appeal, I believe the BCC would have paid the legal bill for the successful defense of the lawsuit brought against Commissioner Underhill in the circuit court.  This would have been appropriate under statute and board policy.  Had we refused to do this, I have every confidence that such a non-payment would have itself been challenged in court and we would have lost that case. 

And then we would have been paying fees on top of fees to attorney Ed Fleming.

So I brought a motion for the board to consider last night which would have allowed for the amount owed currently to be set aside in a reserve account after full payment of the current bill to Ed Fleming by Commissioner Underhill was verified.  This ammount would be held until such time as the court of appeals came back with a dispositive ruling on the case.  If the appeal was ruled in favor of Underhill--the fees held in reserve would have immediately been paid to him.  I felt like this was fair given the circumstance and I felt it would insure timely payment to Ed Fleming for his services rendered in this current case.

But the board did not want to support this sort of an arrangement, I did not get a second on this motion I made.

After much subsequent discussion by the board, Commissioner Underhill made a motion of his own, that the full legal bill be paid immediately.  His motion died for a lack of a second.

After much further back and forth dialogue on this topic by the four of us on the dias, the outcome is crystal clear now.  The BCC simply says NO to paying Commissioner Doug Underhill's legal fees. 

I suspect we will next address this topic if and when the appelate court renders a decision on the circuit court case, which could take months or even years......