By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
CLARKSTON — At its meeting on June 9, the Clarkston City Council approved the hiring of two new attorneys for the city; Gerald Fisher of Fisher Consulting and Kristin Kolb of Rosati, Schultz, Joppich and Amtsbuechler to serve as city attorney and assistant city attorney, respectively.
In January, council was notified by Attorney Tom Ryan of his intention to retire on June 30.
In February, council created a City Attorney Search committee and appointed Al Avery, Gary Casey and Erica Jones to seek out potential candidates and hold interviews.
The committee interviewed three attorneys/firms including Fisher and Kolb as well as Peter Keenan and Stuart Cooney of the Clarkston Law Group and Anne Seurynck of Foster Swift.
“We met individually with each of the attorneys that we were interested and it felt, at least to me, I’m speaking for myself, that Gerald Fisher and Kristin were more than qualified to step into Tom’s shoes,” said Avery. “And one of the things that I thought was important is that Gerald is a little older, and at some point he’ll retire too, but Kristin was younger and seemed to be very qualified. So, when that happens, when Gerry retires, I feel confident that Kristin will be more than capable of stepping in, if that’s how we want to go with that, and for me, that was somewhat important, because I wanted to keep continuity here.”
Jones added that she felt Fisher and Kolb will be a good fit in Clarkston.
“I think it’ll be a fairly smooth transition. I think that budget wise, it’s going to be a great fit. I also think that in terms of specific things that we were looking for, not only were they already familiar with some of those situations, they had already kind of a game plan and strategized on it. So, I think that we’ve made the right choice. I’m excited to see them come on,” Jones said.
Mayor Pro Tem Laura Rodgers asked committee members about Fisher and Kolb’s experience specifically with FIOA and the Open Meetings Act. Avery stated that he felt they were both very comfortable and in fact seemed the most comfortable out of the three attorneys/firms the committee interviewed.
According to city documents, Fisher and Kolb’s rates are $200 and $150 an hour, respectively. This means that Fisher’s rate alone is more than double what Ryan’s rate was, however, council is confident they can stay within the $30,000 attorney budget by potentially doing more work via Microsoft Teams rather than having Fisher in person at every meeting.