County commissioners discuss legal representation with tax assessors

The Decatur County Commissioners met at 8:30 Tuesday morning, thirty minutes earlier than their usual meetings, for a joint meeting with the Decatur County Board of Tax Assessors. The primary reason the assessors wished to meet with the commissioners was to discuss potentially obtaining an outside attorney to represent them in the ongoing legal disputes regarding the Safer Human Medicine primate facility.

Bruce Kirbo is currently the county’s legal counsel, both for the commissioners and the board of assessors, and has been representing both in regards to legal cases pertaining to Safer Human Medicine.

“I think that the real reason we’re here today deals with the way I have handled the litigation, if you will, involving the open meetings matter that was brought by the citizens against all the different government entities involved in the Safer Human Medicine meeting that we had,” Kirbo said.

Kirbo addressed the commissioners, explaining that there had been a disagreement with the tax assessors over how he responded to the citizen’s lawsuit.

“My obligation, as an attorney, whomever I represent, is to, with short, concise answers, either admit or deny the various allegations that have been made,” Kirbo said, “and I filed an answer on behalf of the county, and on behalf of the board of tax assessors. And perhaps, I did not engage in all the discussions that I should have with the board of tax assessors, to get them to verify every admission, or denial, or ‘I don’t have enough information’ to respond to the 80 or 90-some paragraphs that were in that complaint.”

Kirbo asserted that he had accurately represented the board of tax assessors, but that there was a disagreement with his response, hence the request for new outside representation. He further explained that he felt the assessors had lost confidence in his ability to represent them, leading to him withdrawing his representation, though there were some of the assessors that simply wanted Kirbo to amend the response.

With litigation proceeding to the point of discovery, which has a set deadline period, the joint meeting was called to address the issue of legal representation for the assessors. Kirbo stated that he was “ready, willing and able” to represent the assessors, if they “in their judgement, don’t believe that their answer needs to be ammended,” as well as allow him to enter into a consent decree in the SHM litigation. He argued that this was in the best interest of the board of assessors.

The board of assessors briefly re-entered into their meeting, following Kirbo’s remarks, and after several minutes of discussion, the board voted to retain his representation.

Following the conclusion of the joint meeting, the commissioners entered into their regularly scheduled meeting. The first item of new business on the agenda was the consideration of approval of E911 agreements, including an extension with Motorola Solutions, as well as a quote for routers and a firewall at a total of $55,380. These were both approved by the commissioners.

The next item on the agenda was approval of several vehicles as surplus equipment to be sold, which was likewise approved.

After this, the commissioners gave their closing remarks, and the meeting was adjourned.

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