Legal representation for the Wrangell School District was discussed in Monday night’s school board meeting. With the new school year beginning August 23, the board had several policy items to discuss. Among them was the potential hiring the law firm Sedor, Wendlandt, Evans, and Filippi for legal representation. The contract presented to the school, according to board member Aleisha Mollen, was fairly standard. Board member Dave Wilson, however, said that there was some wording in the contract he was concerned about.
The portion of the contract Wilson took issue with was the final portion of Section E., “Represented Party.” The contract states that the law firm “may represent others having interest adverse to persons or entities with which Client is associated and we may do so without need for us to notify Client or secure Client’s consent.”
Mollen said that this basically means the law firm is allowed to represent other clients and that, because of attorney-client privilege, they cannot talk to the school board about those other clients. Similarly, the law firm cannot talk to other clients about the Wrangell School District. However, Wilson said he was confused about the wording, and was worried that there might be a conflict of interest, or the law firm could place other clients as a higher priority than the school.
“Does that mean that they’re not notifying us, that we could be caught with our pants down?” Wilson asked. “It’s a concerning thing to me that we could all of a sudden find ourselves on the short end of the stick.”
After some discussion on the wording of the contract, the board agreed to temporarily recess while they sought clarification. They called John Sedor, a member of the law firm, but were unable to reach him. After calling the meeting back to order, and some further discussion, a vote was called to table the discussion until the next meeting. This vote ended in a tie, however, and the motion failed. The board then held a vote to accept the contract as-is. This, too, ended in a tie. Finally, the board agreed to add the contract to next month’s agenda, and in the meantime to receive clarification from the law firm.
Other items discussed in the meeting include:
Reports from the elementary and secondary principals, as well as a report from the superintendent;
Acceptance of donations from the Wrangell Cooperative Association for the secondary schools’ athletic programs and Evergreen Elementary’s EATS garden;
Acceptance of the FY 2019 Migrant Literacy Grant Award; and
Acceptance of the Indian Education Formula Grant Award.
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