Missoula Mayor Jon Engen went before the City Council this afternoon to discuss updates within the Mountain Water Company acquisition process.

Originally, Missoula City Council budgeted Engen at $400,000, believing that is how much it would take for the entire acquisition process to be completed. Now, the process has more than doubled that amount.

"As of November 18, we will have spent $933,588.13 on this litigation. There will be an addition bill from Boone Karlberg coming up for engineering services in the amount of $186,000," Engen said. "That will put us over the $1 million mark in pursuing this litigation."

Another hot topic of discussion during the brief meeting on Wednesday was a potential change in trial date.

"There is another motion pending—a motion to continue the trial date that is to postpone the trial date past March which we will oppose and the response briefed to that motion is due on the 15th of this month," Engen said. "Since we last talked, we have received another 3,000 pages of supplemental discovery information from Carlyle and folks are going through that."

The city of Missoula is attempting to purchase Mountain Water Company from Carlyle Group so that the city will have control over the availability of water to its residents.

Mountain Water Company Update Meeting:

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