Coalville Mayor Mark Marsh announced Sept. 22 he’s going to leave the hiring of a new city attorney to the new mayor and councilmembers who will be seated in January.
Interim city attorney Craig Smith will continue advising the city in the meantime.
“I have put a lot of thought into this, and I have talked with three or four other mayors, couple of them from big cities, couple small cities like us,” Marsh said. “But due to the critical nature of the two legal issues currently being handled by Craig Smith, I have decided to retain him as our acting city attorney until we are in a more stable position.”
Marsh didn’t specify which two issues he was referencing, but Smith is advising the council on the Wohali resort bankruptcy.
The luxury golf community within city limits declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August, saying it owed between $100 million and $500 million to more than 100 creditors.
Coalville City, the Summit County Treasurer and Summit County Public Works are creditors but are not listed among the 20 largest creditors.
The mayor and city council discussed another major legal issue in closed session Sept. 22, but it’s not clear what it was.
“I have a closed session item concerning litigation that I would like to discuss. The mayor position has made this something that was brought to my attention just a few months ago. We've been working on that,” Marsh said. “Craig [Smith]'s had some hands on what I need to talk about there with that.”
After the closed session, when the mayor informed the council that he’s retaining Smith, Councilmember Shaun Powis said he disagreed with the move.
The council had interviewed several applicants for the city attorney position in August.
“His rate is the highest of those who applied. He's got the highest hourly rate,” Powis said.
Marsh said bringing a new attorney up to speed on the city’s two major legal matters would also be costly and inefficient.
The other councilmembers’ opinions ran the gamut from favorable to opposed, but Councilmember Lynn Wood acknowledged that it’s at the mayor’s discretion to delay the hiring until the new year.
