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July 27, 2003 Page 7 with are Attorney General Opinion that noted that if a violation was found to have occurred, then the official could not be found to have acted out of the reasonable and lawful performance of public duties. In specifically disagreeing, the Court of Appeals noted that although the City of Afton officials in that ease had been found to have violated the Open Meeting Law, the violation was unintentional' In such a circumstance, the conduct was found to be within the "treasonable and lawful performance of public duties.} The court stated: The violation was simply an unfortunate misstep — a stumble — while the appellants went about the performance of legitimate public services. we conclude that the city may provide reimbursement pursuant to § 465.76. Id. at p. 356, The court did rote that the question of whether the statute would allow payment of defense costs if the Open Meeting Law violation were willful or intentional was not meant to be addressed by its decision. what we can tape from this is that it is not enough to show that an official took some action which might be deemed to violate some criminal statute, or some statute of a "criminal nature" such as the Open Meeting Law. As long as the conduct is unintentional it can be said to arise out of the reasonable and lawful performance of duties of the city. Only if it. were intentional might there be an issue. Intentional in this sense would seem to require proof of a knowing and willful violation of a law of a cr r final mature, 1. Request for Relnnbursement To start off the process, the person seeping reimbursement should make a request. That request should be made in writing. By having the request nude in writing, there is no doubt as to what is being sought, and under what circumstances and conditions. The request can set forth why the person seeping reimbursement believes it qualifies for p a ym ent, Because reimbursement is only for costs and `reasonable attorney's fees," the written request for reimbursement should be accompanied by, or shortly followed by, a detailed an itemized statement of the attorney who performed the services for the erson seeking g reimbursement. This allows the City, in consultation with its attorney, to determine whether the car es charges are reasonable. The Council will need to know the hourly h the date that g services were performed, the services performed, and the amount of time spent on those