Below is an email I received from Lisa Lee, our attorney at Ice Miller, in response to my most recent contact requesting that she attend a Council meeting to answer any questions from elected officials or the public. Councilman Backus requested and the public supported, so I asked if she would be available to appear at a local public meeting. I contacted Lisa on Wednesday Jan. 8th and her reply was Friday Jan. 10th.

As you can read, for whatever reason, someone from one or more of the executive branches has contacted Lisa and obviously requested she not be available. Whatever "discussions and disclosures" took place were clearly initiated by either/both city or county executive branch/es. I can't think of any decent or honest reason why they would want to stop a neutral, highly qualified, legal expert from being available to you and all other area elected officials. Surely this was not some sort of last ditch effort to discredit the ILA by saying it had not had final legal review.

Whether the person/s were motivated to falsely discredit the final product as "not legal" or having not had a "final review", or if the hope was to keep elected officials from having easy access to Ice Miller legal experts, the action was clearly born of desperation. The ILA has been reviewed by Ice Miller twice; there have been no changes since the last review, therefore it is the final, fully "legal" document as Ice Miller provided us. Regarding availability for public meetings, although for the time being Lisa cannot attend, she leaves that door wide open by stating, "if the situation has been misinterpreted and entities are participating toward the common goal ...". In other words once the governing bodies begin the discussion and the mayor and commissioners are answering questions from the public and press regarding the ILA she would be happy to "re-engage". However we would need a letter from the executive branches, but if the mayor and/or commissioners are determined to prevent access to qualified, neutral legal counsel there is not much we can do except disclose that information to our colleagues , the public and the press.

Hopefully there is some misunderstanding but if not, our public discussions can and should move forward without Lisa. I'm sure the public will be both concerned and curious why a select few elected officials are working hard to keep other elected officials from these resources especially since our team worked so hard to provide high quality service at NO COST to any entity or citizens.

Just wanted to keep you informed, give me a call if you want to discuss anything.
Thanks
Pete

I wanted to respond to your request for additional services for the Advance Collaboration Team(ACT) regarding its Interlocal Agreement to create a Community Development Council involving Jefferson County, the City of Madison and the Town of Hanover. Based on original correspondence, we believed that our clients were all on board and in concert with a common goal to be achieved. As such, the representation was reviewed by our ethics committee and it was determined that we did not have a conflict and could perform the services requested (i.e. review of draft interlocal agreement). That review was completed and we will not be billing for such services. Subsequent to our review and based on discussions and disclosures from our clients, it is no longer clear that all of our clients are in concert toward that common goal. I have taken the information to our ethics committee and have been told that we now have a conflict and cannot go forward with the representation.

If the situation has been misinterpreted and all of the governmental entities are participating toward the common goal, we would be happy to revisit the engagement upon written approval of the executive body of each participating local government.
Sincerely, Lisa A. Lee
Ice Miller