04/20/1999 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 4/20/99 throughout the city. Mayor Musial said the 911 system appears to be satisfactory. There will be no difficulties with the Wastewater Treatment Plant because that is primarily a manual operation and they have generators to accommodate a power failure. He heard recently that First Energy Corporation appears to be on schedule with regard to Y2K impacting electrical generation and distribution. We are going through YZK testing of the mainframe data processor. Gary has sent out a questionnaire in order to ascertain what other areas have to be looked at and taken care of. Mr. Limpert said he wished to respond to last month's report in regard to his report of the prior meeting. At the last Council meeting, there was a report read pointing out that his facts needed to be corrected. He does not accept this as so, but he does accept that another member of Council was operating under a perception of facts that were not universally accepted. The issue is not about any one individual's pay in the past, but it is about the current Personnel Director's pay and the money she is saving the taxpayers which can then be appropriated for other needed projects. Regarding the report delivered last week, he is deeply disturbed by the last paragraph which read: "It is disheartening to think that once all sides are heard and the majority has spoken, that the dissenting parties would present their arguments in such an adversarial, judgmental and unprofessional manner. Finally, it is especially disappointing to realize that once the majority has spoken, not all of us can leave the room as colleagues with the mutual respect for the other's voice and opinion. Instead, the minority and the administration chose to personalize a very public issue or policy that a political majority of Council has deliberately avoided in respect to each other as individuals." He believes those statements to be false. In no way was his report unprofessional and in no way was it an attempt to personalize anything. As for being adversarial, disagreements tend to be that way. As far as being judgmental, elected officials are elected to make judgments. He considers all of the city's elected officials as his colleagues and plans on being very supportive of every member of Council when it is his belief and/or judgment that they are right. He hopes that Council will treat each issue as a fresh subject and vote using their best judgment. There is nothing political about minority opinions, and he trusts it is not Council's intent to silence minority opinions. Addressing a comment made this evening about being a liberal spender, he feels what he has proposed is good business sense. He is calling for granting a raise within an existing pay range to an employee who has saved the city $64,000. Mayor Musial said he wished to make comments with regard to pay increases. In his opinion, a raise in salary is an important management tool for inducing incentive and providing motivation to qualified employees. With regard to the Personnel Director, he did not request a raise in salary outside of the range established by Council nor was a raise scheduled in the middle of the year. Also, the raise was not at the top of the salary range. If Council does not consider within-range pay raises above the general pay increase, then the administration will have to bring in new hires at the top of the pay range. This is because any range in salary would be the general percentage increase given to all of the employees. Consequently, an employee could never reach the top of the pay range. He thinks Council should rely on the Mayor to make the decision on ~°°' within-range pay raises because ultimately it is the Mayor who is going to be held 11 ..._.~.H„~.,R,,.~