Council to revisit liability issue after heated dispute

The Hope Town Council will be revisiting its liability insurance provider decision again tonight at a council work session. The usually low-key decision led to some frayed tempers at last month's regular Town Council meeting.

The town has been looking for more bidders for the annual insurance renewal. The insurance cost the town about $45,000 dollars last year, according to its insurance broker, Jake Miller, of Miller Insurance on the Hope Town Square. The company is co-owned by Councilman Ohmer Miller, who has mostly abstained from discussions and votes on the insurance provider choice.

The decision grew heated at the end of last month's council meeting, when Miller presented closed bids from six companies interested in providing the town with insurance. But Town Clerk-Treasurer Diane Burton said that a seventh company, unaffiliated with Miller, was interested in bidding.
She said the company could not get its bid in on time because it did not have all the information it needed. A delay that Burton suggested was due to Miller Insurance not providing details in a timely manner.

Jake Miller countered that the only notice he received that the information was requested was from an email Burton sent to Ohmer Miller's personal account, rather than the company address. That information was provided within the 30 day timeframe required, he said. Further, Jake Miller said that some of the requested information was not the insurance company's information to give, but something the clerk should already have on hand.

"Here is my comment to the council and to the clerk-treasurer, if you are relying on your insurance agent to give you schedules of your properties, schedules of the equipment that you own as a town, you are doing the town a disservice and not doing your job by keeping your own schedules," Miller said. 

The conversation then broke down over who talked to who on which date, and whether the seventh company even should be considered since they did not meet the council's earlier deadline -- with the Millers on one side of the dispute and Burton and most of the other council members on the other.

Jake Miller took issue with the council's decision-making process and delays.

"These quotes that we are providing, that we have diligently done, they are mid-term, which is acting in bad faith to quote it out in mid-term," Miller said. "In an insurance professional's opinion and there are three in the room and I think they would all agree with me that it is bad faith to quote it out mid-term."

Further, he called the council unprofessional in not opening the bids that he had submitted by the deadline.

At one point, Councilman Clyde Compton called for Jake Miller to give up the podium..

"I think we have heard enough from him and I say we don't open it and we wait for the other bid, even though we are 'unprofessional,'" Compton said.

Council President Ed Johnson said that Compton originally asked for the two-week deadline.

"But if they withheld information so the other company could not bid, that is not right," Compton said.

Jake Miller countered "I have proof that I did not withold information."

"I said, I have heard enough from you!" Compton said.

"Wait a minute, we are not going to get into a shouting match, here," Johnson interjected. "Both of you just stop."

Ultimately, the council voted 0-3 against opening the bids and instead decied to consider the proposals from all seven insurance vendors. Compton, Nellie Meek and Jerry Bragg voted against opening the bids and neither Johnson nor Ohmer Miller voted verbally.

"Can I have the quotes back please," Jake Miller said. "I don't want anyone to get those and use them inappropriately."

The council is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. today at Town Hall to consider the liability insurance issue.