Exactly one year later, the issue regarding compensation for township attorney Michael Herbert seems to have finally been resolved.##M:[more]##
The council introduced an ordinance at the council’s July 1 reorganization meeting that establishes a salary ordinance for Herbert. A public hearing is scheduled for Monday, August 4.
The controversy first broke out during last year’s reorganization meeting, when Will Anklowitz, George Borek, and Charles Morgan voted not to renew the service agreement to pay Herbert and tried to oust him. Herbert was appointed for a four-year term by Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh in 2005, with the advice and consent of council. The contract to pay Herbert’s firm, however, is renewed yearly. This prompted Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh last year to threaten to sue the council to prevent the ouster.
Morgan, who had multiple disagreements with Herbert leading up to last year’s reorganization meeting, said he believed that the township has been operating illegally with regard to appointing and paying its township attorney. Morgan says that under state law, municipalities must adopt ordinances to set the pay scale for their township attorneys. He claimed the township’s use of resolutions has been unlawful, he claimed.
The issue has lingered at council meetings this past year. Morgan has consistently voted against approving the bills for Herbert’s law firm, with other council members approving them, and has called for closure to the issue.
Prior to this year’s reorganization meeting, Morgan said, Herbert drafted the salary ordinance. There was one state court case dealing with the issue this year which supports his position, Morgan said, but the case is on appeal.
“I’m very pleased to see an introduction on the ordinance here,” Morgan said. “It’s one of those legal technicalities that I thought was an issue.” Morgan insists that he had “no interest in not compensating him.”
Herbert explained that the ordinance would establish the same compensation stated in the special services agreement — which was approved 4-0 with Morgan’s abstention — but in ordinance form.
The agreement calls for Herbert’s firm to be paid no more than $238,”920 for work from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009. The council also brought back the practice of having Herbert sit at the dais.
