The Carbon County Commissioners came together during their regularly scheduled commission meeting on Wednesday evening to consider and possibly award the bid for contracted public defender services in the Seventh District Judicial and Juvenile Courts of Carbon County as well as the Carbon County Justice Court.
These bids were previously presented to commissioners. During the previous presentation, local attorney Robert Oliver took time to speak with commissioners on their unique bid. Commission Chair Casey Hopes stated that since then, the commissioners have had the opportunity to review the proposals and asked if the other commissioners had questions before a decision was made.
Commissioner Jake Mellor made the motion to approve the contract to the three attorney group that presented. He also stated that they can move forward by entering into negotiations to finalize a contract with them. According to Mellor, one of the reasons he made the motion is the substantial amount of resources and conflict cases.
Mellor also recommended that in the negotiations it should be noted that the type of structure remains throughout the contract with the three attorneys. If that were to change, the commissioners would then be able to either re-negotiate or go out for bid once more. Another point of interest was that the attorneys are asking for significantly more than what is in the budget, therefore the contract terms would be written in such a way that they would also be harmonious with grant application through indigent defense council.
The motion as written will state that the commissioners will enter into negotiations with the attorney group to formalize an agreement within the funding opportunities available through the grant as well as the structure remaining the same going forward. County Attorney Christian Bryner informed the commissioners that the current public defender plans to finish his work on the last day of February, meaning the agreement will need to be finalized before that day.
These points were agreed upon and the motion as written was approved.