A new city attorney for Charles City

By Thomas Nelson, tnelson@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Council will consider an appointment for Charles City Assistant City Attorney Brad Sloter’s to become city attorney.

Ralph Smith is the current attorney for the city of Charles City. For the past year Sloter has been advising the city on legal matters at council meetings.

“In the last year or so Brad has taken over that lead role,” said Charles City Administrator Steven Diers during the council’s planning session Monday evening.

Council members didn’t seem to object to the appointment, but did focus on the method of appointment for a city attorney.

Council member Jerry Joerger asked whether the appointment is through the City Council or mayor.

The change would move Sloter to the position of city attorney and have Smith continue as the assistant attorney to take advantage of his experience. The change would be effective Jan. 1 2018.

The last time Charles City appointed a city attorney was the mid-90s.

“I’d like us to move forward with appointing Brad Sloter as our city attorney,” Diers said.

No council members voiced objection to the appointment, but no official actions are taken during a planning session.

Also during the planning session the council reviewed a return-to-work policy presented by Kate Benson Laron, injury management consultant from EMC Insurance.

The policy would cover worker’s compensation for city employees.

Prior to the council planning session, a special meeting was held where the council dicussed the annual urban renewal report for fiscal year 2017 as well as the annual TIF certification,

The council approved both the annual urban renewal report and certification.

The city has $1.456 million in outstanding TIF obligations for all five TIF districts, said Diers during the special meeting.

“A lot of the long term debt is coming to end,” he said.

There will be about an $18,000 increase in urban renewal TIF spending.

The Mitas and Valero TIFs are coming to a close.

“As a whole our large obligation in Southwest bypass (TIF district) are coming to a close,” Diers said.

The next City Council voting session is planned for Monday, Dec. 4, in the council chambers, located at City Hall.