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Rhinelander's Legal Bills On Hold After Vote

Starjournalnow.com

The legal bills will need to be paid, but just how remains a question for the Rhinelander Common Council.

The city has just under $200,000 in bills owed to von Briesen for legal services over the past few months.

City Administrator Daniel Guild says there are monies in various budgeted accounts that could be used...

"...Before we go through and spend the time to put all those different things together, we think it's advantageous to get the blessing of the council. There's been a number of questions about billing that we can go ahead and pay the bills. Then we'd like to respond by showing the various allocations into the various departments..."

Guild said there is some extra money in accounts like the cable franchise fee that could be used.

But Alder Dawn Rog disagreed with the way the resolution was set up, and felt it was necessary to get a majority of council members to agree...

"...Lets be reminded that a resolution has to pass by two-thirds...whether you're moving money through a resolution or if you're choosing to move money through a transfer. It still requires two-thirds of the council to vote that it..."

Guild says they also didn't fill some open positions and found about $200,000 to pay the legal bills.

Guild says he was waiting to see some direction from the council as to how to proceed..

"For years, we let hundreds of thousands of dollars be un-budgeted and other funds that we just reconcile at the end of the year without budget action and there's a reluctance to take on this topic..."

Alder Lee Emmer felt there was still too much uncertainty in the resolution about where the money was coming from. When the vote was taken to give direction to pay the bills, the council rejected the motion on a 4-3 vote.

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