« Budget Hearings | Main | November 17, 2008 Council Night »
Monday, November 3, 2008
By Administrator | December 3, 2008
I got behind in blogging these meetings because of the budget workshops and my preparation for them. Then, before I completed one meeting, another one was held, then a third. I told myself that I was going to sit down and finish what I had started, so here goes.
Common Council
We were called to order at 6:05 PM, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, then had roll call. Everyone was present. There was no public hearing so we went right to Public Comments, at which time we heard form a resident of 7th St. who was upset because he raked his lawn faithfully but the neighbors didn’t; also the leaves were not being picked up timely enough to prevent them from blowing all over his lawn once again.
We then had the Report of Department Heads/Staff/Consultants. Mayor Merkes announced the budget workshop meetings to be held on November 6, 10, and 13, and the dates they would be shown on TV on Channel 2, Time Warner Cable. The next item was the presentation of minutes to receive and communication to accept from Clerk Galeazzi. All seven (7) minutes and seven (7) communications were accepted.
We moved on to the Consent Agenda, which contained the minutes of the Council meeting of 10/20/08, a recommendation from the Administration Committee for rescind the property taxes of tax exempt houses at 236 and 244 Kaukauna St., and to make application to FEMA for storm related expenses from early June, as well as recommendations from the Board of Public Works and the IT Steering Committee. The BPW recommends a change order for Lake Park Villas stormwater pond, a payment to J&E Construction for the same stormwater pond, and a revised Joint Stormwater Feasibility Agreement between the City and the Town of Menasha; the IT committee recommends a proposal acceptance for Common Sense Solutions to provide consulting for the remainder of 2008. Schenck used to provide this service but has streamlined out of this area; the consultant is the same person who formerly worked for Schenck. The Consent Agenda was approved 8-0.
We moved through the Agenda to Action Items and voted 8-0 to approve the account s payable and payroll. We next moved to Claims Against the City and issued a formal notice of disallowance for the claim of Aspen Maui Adventures, LLC. They allege that the City did stormwater and sewer repairs that caused flooding in the basement of a Main St. address they own. None of the investigating parties could substantiate their claim in any way, shape or form.
No one wished to make any Public Comments, so we adjourned at 6:20PM.
Administration Committee
We were called to order at 6:30PM, had roll call with everyone present. The only item on the Agenda was the minutes from the 10/20/08 meeting to approve. They were approved as submitted. We adjourned at 6:32PM.
Board of Public Works
We were called to order at 6:35PM, had roll call (everyone present) and approved the minutes of the October 20 meeting as submitted. Under Action Items, we had two which were both recommended to be forwarded to the Council. The first was payment to the National Power Rodding Corporation for the wastewater collection system rehab improvement project. The second was a request for an additional street light at the south end of Kenwood Dr.
When I had seen this on the agenda, I took a ride to this location after dark and saw that it was extremely dark. I mentioned this when we were discussion it.
We adjourned at 6:40PM.
Personnel Committee
We were called to order at 6:40PM, with everyone still present, including Mayor Merkes. We approved the minutes of the 9/2/08 meeting, then moved on to Action Items.
There was a side letter agreement from the Police Union to accept the consideration of Step 6 pay for the K-9 officer. After a short discussion, a motion was made to recommend this to the Council.
We received an update to the negotiations on the Health Insurance mediation. Apparently the various unions are not in favor of third offering by the City and want to retain the two higher priced offerings which they want to keep at current percentages of contributions. Now, personally, I find this abhorrent, not only as a taxpayer but also one who gets health insurance from a business in the private sector. Those percentages of contribution are nearly 50-50, and choices are more unlimited but, at our rates of contribution, we shoulder the brunt of the cost anyway. That, and we have extremely high deductibles, to boot.
We also received an update on Union negations; there were at least two (2) meetings and economic issues were raised on both.
We adjourned at about 7:30PM.
