ESCANABA — Escanaba’s plans to hire a new city attorney collided with plans for the redevelopment of the former Delta County Jail Thursday. “I wish we didn’t have to postpone it,” said Council Member Tyler Dubord of the council’s plan to award the development project Thursday. “I really wish that we could move forward and get this moving as fast as we could. There’s just a lot of unknowns right now with the legal side, and at this time we do not have a legal attorney and there’s been a big delay there.”

According to the agenda packet published in advance of Thursday’s meeting, the council intended to both award the redevelopment project and to give final approval of a contract between the city and former Delta County Prosecutor Brett Gardner. The contract, which Gardner and City Manager Patrick Jordan signed on April 12, the day following Gardner’s resignation from the prosecutor’s office, was included in the packet. However, in an about-face Thursday, Jordan informed the council he was seeking the hire of a different attorney, Lisa Vogler of L.J. Vogler Law, PLC, based in Beulah, Mich.

“She’s a fantastic attorney. I’ve worked with her before,” Jordan told the council.

Multiple concerns were raised Vogler’s hire, including a clause in her contract that stipulated she could attend meetings remotely when the city charter specifies a city attorney must be “present” at meetings.

“It does seem like we should have a legal opinion on what the term ‘present’ does indicate as far as participation in a meeting and it might help us decide if we need to change an ordinance,” said Mayor Mark Ammel, noting prior comments by Jordan that the city has used other attorneys for legal council between former City Attorney John M. A. Bergman’s resignation in December of last year and Thursday’s meeting.

Concerns were also raised about how Vogler was selected for the position. Jordan stated he had approached her and she had expressed interest in the postion on January 24, but her hire was never brought to the council for discussion despite multiple issues needing the work of a city attorney. Both the jail redevelopment plan and the city’s recent decision to opt-in to commercial marijuana sales in the city have been stalled because of the city’s lack of legal counsel. When asked why the council had not engaged with Volger in January and the council was only learning of her interest after Gardner disengaged himself from the city, Jordan declined to comment.

“Some of this, I feel a little uncomfortable having this discussion in public when it’s a discussion with an attorney. I don’t want to do anything to damage anyone’s reputation. Yeah, I’m not going to have that discussion. I’m sorry,” Jordan said.

Despite three members of the council expressing reservations with Council Member Ron Beauchamp absent and only Council Member Karen Moore speaking in support of Jordan’s choice, Vogler’s hire was ultimately not up to the council. By city charter, the city manager is responsible for the hire of municipal attorneys. It is only the contract itself that must be approved by the council.

“We do have the right as a body to terminate the contract if we see fit. We do. We have the right to terminate the contract once it’s agreed, so once she’s coming up here on May 5, we do have the right to ask questions, we get to find out what her intentions are, when we’re going to get these legal opinions back to us and that were backlogged, and I think that if we feel that she is not fit then we can terminate that agreement,” said Dubord.

With that understanding, the council members present unanimously approved hiring Vogler for $51,000 annually, paid as $4,250 per month. For other services not generally covered by the contract, she will be paid $175 per hour.

Despite the hire, damage may have already been done to the planned development at the Delta County Jail site. Jarred Drown, of the Terrace Bay Hotel, which intends to develop a Hilton hotel on the site, said Hilton has been holding a position for the new hotel since October. However, with Dial Properties, owners of the Delta Plaza Mall, seeking to build a hotel on the highway, the single Hilton-branded hotel slot may be lost for the project by as soon as May 1.

“We have relationships with the people at Mariot, it’s not the end of the road for a high end hotel, but delaying does have costs and I’d just like to point that out,” said Drown.

Multiple people also questioned in public comment whether or not the city had already received a legal opinion on whether the joint development plan could move forward. According to Kelli VanGinhoven, who claimed to have filed a Freedom of Information request for emails between Jordan and Moore’s private email address, said she was in possession of a highly redacted email from Jordan to Moore following questions from Moore as to whether or not a similar joint development proposal that did not meet the city’s original request for proposal was possible.

“Patrick Jordan responded the next day with Brett Gardner’s answer and it was redacted, and when I received my FOIA request back, I was told that it was redacted because it was a legal opinion.”