Tuesday, August 27, 2019

NJ Officials Look to Secure Legal Services for Potential Railroad Sale

Posted on August 27, 2019
Author Jacque Ryan, WKVI

The North Judson Town Council considered two agreements related to services they would need as they proceed with the potential sale of the town-owned railroad.

In order to save money on insurance and avoid the associated complications that come with managing a railroad, officials have been discussing a potential sale during their last few meetings.

At last Monday’s Town Council meeting President John Rowe shared what is being considered as a possibility at this point in time.

He explained, “Hoosier Valley – we’d work out some sort of deal where they would be able to run their trains, which is important for the town, everybody wants that, we want that.”

Rowe continued, “But the other part of the railroad that we have to manage as a town, which is difficult, we would sell and we would profit from it and we would let somebody else manage railroads.”

During that same meeting, members were presented with two different agreements for legal services.

One was from Schramm Law Group and was related to securing Town Attorney Justin Schramm’s services to get involved with this sales process specifically.

The agreement stated that Schramm’s services would cost $200 per hour and fees would be billed at the time of the sale. Members voted unanimously to approve that agreement.

The other agreement was from the firm Bose, Mckinney and Evans.

President Rowe said he felt that the price proposed in their agreement, $445 per hour, was on the high side. He also expressed a concern with their request to be paid on a monthly basis rather than when the sale is finalized.

Rather than voting at that time, members decided to table the agreement with Bose, McKinney, and Evans until Schramm would be available to look it over and answer some questions since he was not in attendance during the last meeting.

No comments: