I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

The Assembly of the City and Borough of Sitka would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional first people of Sheetka.

With gratitude, we proceed on Clinkitani.

Sarah Roll Club, please.

Mayor Isenbais.

Present.

Mr.

Mosher.

Here.

Mr.

Pike.

Here.

Mr.

Yestad.

Here.

Ms.

Carlson.

Here.

Mr.

Steline.

Here.

And Mr.

Christensen is absent this evening.

Great.

Thank you.

That'll bring us two persons to be heard.

This is public participation for any item off of tonight's agenda, not to exceed three minutes for any individual.

Seeing none, we will move into our first order of business, our first and only order of business tonight.

Discussion direction decision on interim legal services.

So as the assembly is aware, our attorney Brian Hansen has uh put in his retirement notice effective June 30th.

Um up to this point, we have been unable to find uh a replacement attorney, um, even though our recruiting efforts have been far and wide.

So uh we're gathered here tonight to kind of talk about the assembly's wish in going forward in maintaining some sort of legal services.

Uh by that essentially we mean contracting out and uh some if the assembly has any concerns with that or uh if they have any thoughts on the process as well.

So um we're it's a free flow discussion tonight.

Um I do have a little bit of information on um JDO and Michael Gotti, if uh the assembly is um interested, I'm sure John has a little bit more because he's been working on our behalf in order to help that process along.

Um Mindy is in the room as well, uh, the legal assistant.

So if we have questions and thoughts for her, um, we're able to provide that as well for those online who might not be able to see her.

Um so if anyone would like to get the the meeting started, or if uh Kevin, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I'll just uh I feel like this this meeting is is not necessarily gonna be long at all.

I feel like it'll be really quick.

Um I believe right now uh what we need is clarity for the assembly, uh the public staff on the path forward because as you said, uh Mr.

Hanson's retirement is on June 30th, and we don't have anyone, and there are many pressing legal issues uh facing um this town.

So in my mind, what we need what I would like to do, I'm just going for it because just to get the conversation started, is I would like to uh agree that we're going to continue to have um, I believe we already have a some sort of agreement with JEO, but I want it um more clear for the assembly that we have uh an engage with JDO, uh Mr.

Michael Gotti of JDO to uh give us temporary legal services until a new attorney can be uh hired.

Uh as far as contact point, because I'm concerned about John and uh Sarah being the ones who kind of just everything kind of comes to them just by nature of them being there.

Uh I'm concerned about them being overwhelmed or just having too much to do as far as it's like there's a that's a huge job.

So my mind, we would make uh Mindy Lawrence, the legal assistant, the contact point um for uh for the assembly, the the staff and whoever uh obviously people with staff within the the um city would need to go through their supervisors and that could be worked out.

John could work that out, but um, for any items that assembly members need assistance with, I think we should go through Mindy and basically she would just do a pass through or any issues that are um pressing um just of a right wide variety.

I think we need to have amendy as the contact point.

Obviously, John and Sarah would be in communication with her because um there's just things that are gonna come up, informational things.

Um then um, yeah, I think that's it.

And then finally, I would like to find out the status of our uh from HR.

Well, they're not here, but John could inform us of the status of the search for legal co for long time uh legal counsel because obviously this is not a uh permanent thing.

Um this would be until we can find someone, Mr.

Mayor, please.

Uh I just I have a couple of questions.

I think probably for John as much as anything.

I I'm not disagreeing with uh anything that Kevin has indicated here, with the exception of I think there are um I do have questions about um the sequencing of things and whether or not we want to put that kind of responsibility on uh someone other than the administrative staff to uh to make sure that they you know, for example, let's say lawsuits as they come forward and move move along.