Local attorney Robert Oliver attended the Helper City Council meeting that was hosted on Thursday evening to discuss the public defender contract with Carbon County.
Oliver explained that what Carbon County is doing with other cities is creating a regionalization of public defender services. The goal is to create a more cohesive unit managed by the county. Oliver is acting as the managing defender and wants the system to be sure that there is adequate council.
Through this new regionalization, Helper City would pay the same amount that it is currently paying to the county. The county would then manage the public defender contracts from there.
Oliver discussed the perks, and also stated that there are three attorneys within the justice court and three within the district court that would handle the cases. Oliver informed the council that Helper generally has about 50 filings and a dozen district court filings per year. This new system was also recommended by Helper City’s Attorney, Dominique Kiahtipes.
This is a program that would also assist in the hours of effort put forth by the city’s law enforcement. With these discussions in mind, the contract was then approved.