ESCANABA — The Escanaba City Council voted to approve its review of City Manager Patrick Jordan Thursday, but the contents will remain a secret at least until the city’s attorney can determine if there are legal issues with the city’s historical practice of releasing the information to the media.

In the past, the city has provided an anonymized version of the review, keeping the scoring and written comments intact but eliminating which council members made each statement. A story summarizing the review and including the council member’s comments was then published in the Daily Press.

However, Jordan was hesitant to release the contents of the most current review, which was the subject of more than an hour of closed session time at the July 7 meeting and led to a committee being formed to redraft his contract.

“So the last time, they were publicized, but this time we are concerned and we are not publicizing them? Just to be clear. That’s a yes or no question,” Mayor Mark Ammel asked Jordan during the meeting.

“Yeah, that’s essentially what happened,” Jordan replied.

The initial motion made by Council Member Tyler DuBord to approve the review included making the review public record. City Attorney Lisa Vogler, who attended the Thursday’s meeting virtually, asked the council for time to review the legality of doing so.

“I have concerns about doing that and the exposure of the city to liability. I have discussed this with both the city clerk as well as the mayor. I have requested an opportunity to conduct some legal research related to this issue and report back to the city council in closed session on my opinions, legal opinions, on the matter of publicizing the substantive information included in the review,” said Vogler.

Vogler will next attend a council meeting in person on Aug. 18 and intends to have an opinion at that time.

Beyond the legal question of releasing the review, the committee formed following the review had questions of its own.

“We feel that we have a couple questions and we’d like to get legal opinion from a company that deals with employee contracts on a regular basis, and of course that’ll cost a couple dollars,” said Council Member Ron Beauchamp, who sits on the two-person committee with Ammel.

The motion to seek a legal opinion from an outside attorney was met with some resistance. Council Member Karen Moore, who had voted at the July 7 meeting against forming the committee in the first place, voted against allowing the council to seek legal advice. Council Member Todd Flath also voted against the motion, based on the fact the city already had retained Vogler.

“We have counsel. There’s no reason to go outside and get another counsel,” he said.

The motion passed, 3-2.