 Local news down the Crowing County board held an emergency meeting today to address retaining counsel to defend the county Against a lawsuit filed by its attorney its county attorney our Logan Gay attended that meeting and has more The Crowing County board is working swiftly to try and retain counsel for the lawsuit is confronting from the county attorney Don Ryan. There is a certain timeframe within the law that the county has to respond And so the lawsuit when it is officially filed and we get noticed that time frame starts to click Ryan's decision to sue comes after the board rejected both his budget proposals for the county's 2017 budget and property tax levy Land services community services we've asked them all the chicken to try to be more efficient on government to To try to do a better job and everybody has come forward except this one office The board is seeking to hire an attorney from the Twin Cities named Scott Anderson He has experienced handling these types of cases It's a hundred and eighty five dollars per hour for that attorney and the estimate that I got from him was if this goes Through to the stage where it might get settled it probably will cost us ten to fifteen thousand dollars if it goes all The way to trial that could be an additional ten to fifteen thousand dollars many of the board members wish that there were another way to settle the Issue I think that they're very passionate about the fact that they don't want to see taxpayer money being spent for attorneys on both sides They are prepared to protect the county and their decisions that they have made They call me an attorney that's suing that a common board is actually suing all the citizens of Crow and Com and what a sad day that is And Brainerd, Logan Gay, Lakeland News All five judges serving in Crow and County District Court have recused themselves from the case The case has instead been assigned to Cass County Judge David Harrington If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television