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Council Minutes of 6/6/2000 <br />time was wasted. For what? There was nothing in this ordinance that was not <br />workable. Every one should be accountable for that, and he wants to hear why it was <br />not put back in committee and the time spent to make the ordinance proper. Not only <br />is this wrong, but it borders on doing the wrong thing for their constituency because <br />time was wasted and it was thrown out for no reason. President Saringer said this <br />issue was discussed in caucus and she tried to convince Council to send it back to <br />committee for review to see if it was workable and then act upon it. <br />Responses to Mr. Tallon's comments: <br />Councilman Limpert <br />• The city has prevailing wage in all its contracts to level the playing field so that <br />working people, union or not, can have an equal opportunity to compete. This <br />legislation gets to the very root of what can be wrong with divisiveness. He is very <br />proud of the good work done by the 90% union people who have received contracts <br />in the city. However, if this Council could legislate something to virtually make it <br />100% union, another Council could later make it 100% non-union. <br />Councilman Gareau <br />• He does not think Council wasted a year's time. Philosophically he has had a number <br />of problems with the ordinance for a period of time. It was his understanding in <br />speaking with his colleagues that there probably wasn't support to pass the ordinance. <br />It could have been sent it to committee and then wasted time by spending time talking <br />about changes. But why would that be done if the people have a conceptual problem <br />with the ordinance? Council could fool the residents and the members of the various <br />trades who have come out in support of the ordinance to make them believe that <br />somehow it was going to pass. Why would we do that? That constitutes a waste of <br />time to him. He did not think tinkering with the legislation was going to do the job. <br />It's not the easy thing to look at 200 people and tell them you disagree with their <br />position, but that's his job. Mr. Tallon was a member of Council at one time and he is <br />now a member of the PC. It's not an easy job, but it's one he has to do. You have to <br />step back and evaluate and come to a conclusion. He feels sending it to committee <br />would have been a waste of time. In his mind and his heart he knew it would not <br />come out alive. <br />Councilman Nashar <br />• He has researched the ordinance and he did ask questions of the Law Director. He <br />asked what other suburbs had this legislation. The Law Director said no other suburb <br />in the State of Ohio has such an ordinance in place. As a matter of fact, only two <br />states in the country have applied this ordinance to their cities. In the past, North <br />Olmsted has awarded 90% of its contracts to unions. He feels passing the PLA <br />legislation would have opened the city to another lawsuit similar to what happened <br />with the sign ordinance. This would have jeopardized the city. There are many jobs <br />in the city where the unions have prevailed, and he doesn't have a problem with that. <br /> <br />12 <br />