04/07/1998 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 4/7/98 3) The monthly directors' meeting will be held tomorrow at Springvale and Human Resources Director Don Copeland will give a presentation on grants. Council is welcome to attend. Law Director Gareau: 1) Last week he attended apre-trial in the case of Zygmunt Blaut vs. the City of North Olmsted and Patrolman Dungan. He attended the conference to protect the interest of the city relative to settlement of that case because of the city's insurance deductible. He spent several hours in discussions, and the insurance counsel has offered to settle the case. 2) Yesterday he was served with a copy of a request by Biskind's attorneys in the Parcel E case to have Judge Gaul recuse himself from the case because he is a resident of North Olmsted. He is vigorously opposed to that and is in the process of filing a brief in opposition to the request to have Judge Gaul recuse himself. He does not feel that just because a judge happens to be a citizen of North Olmsted that he cannot fairly decide this case. As far as the statutes are concerned, simply being a resident of a city is not sufficient reason to require the judge to recuse himself/herself from a case. 3) He recently attended a conference at Georgetown University regarding civil rights actions. The two-day conference covered many various issues dealing with the status of the law today with respect to civil rights actions being filed against municipal corporations. 4) The city was served with a lawsuit today by the Chamber of Commerce regarding our sign ordinance. Although we do not welcome lawsuits, it appears that is a better approach than political posturing. The case is assigned to Judge Nugent in federal court. An executive session will be held this evening to discuss the lawsuit. 5) The Law Department is working on a brief for an AFSCME arbitration case dealing with the appointment by the Service Director of a maintenance person and alleged abuse of discretion. Finance Director Copfer: 1) 1) As previously mentioned, the procedure on purchases was tightened to require written purchase requisitions and assigned purchase order numbers before a purchase is authorized and ordered. We have streamlined this and worked on a in-by-noon and out-by-the-next-workday turn around time of the paperwork so that we are not inhibiting the departments' ability to do their job. The procedure is working quite well. As before, emergencies are still being walked through by the director on an as-need basis. 2) The city received the $77,000 of property tax refunds for Springvale, who originally paid that tax out of their fund for certain parcels of property. 3) The appropriations budget was accepted by the county along with an amended certificate of estimated resources on March 31, 1998. We received our certificate of the County Auditor stating that the appropriations do not exceed the official estimate of balances and revenues. This is commonly known as the DNE certificate, or "Does Not Exceed." 4) A check was issued to the City of Rocky River for $31,550.39 contingent on Rocky River filing an entry for dismissal and mutual release. In addition, the west side mayors ~~• 2 ,~,>., ..,._ w.:...~.