08/21/2007 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 8/21/2007 June 26, it went back to a special Council meeting and again, although it was requested for safety issues to be suspended, it was not suspended by the members. When Council was on vacation in July, the administration requested special meetings but Council was unable to get a quorum together to address an issue of safety importance to their citizens. On July 10, new Assistant Chief Todd Kirkpatrick was appointed and the duties of the temporary part-time administrator ceased per a previous legislation of Council. Assistant Chief Kirkpatrick was a fire fighter. He has no previous administrative experience. He has personally asked Council for their support to have this administrator assist him. The Fire Chief has personally asked Council to assist him for inspections, which is the prime responsibility of the Fire Administrator. On July 16, the Safety Director informed City Council of the extremely unusual step that his administration had to take to hire the Fire Administrator as a contract employee in order to protect our citizens' welfare because Council chose not to act. On August 7, a new ordinance was introduced and Council chose not to pass it under suspension. It was discussed at a committee meeting that went past 11 o'clock. Today we find that we are not getting the 60 days that the Fire Chief and Safety Director had requested, but 25 days. The conduct at the last Safety Committee was so excessive that a member of Council walked out. His administration did not, but his administration will not be behaving in that same way the next time they're treated this way. He felt that Councilman Orlowski treated the professionals in the City of North Olmsted as school children. (President Kennedy again stopped the Mayor and asked he not give an opinion. He asked that the Mayor treat Council with respect. The Mayor felt his motivation was being disparaged and felt his ability to speak as granted by the Charter was being interfered with. President Kennedy said he had a responsibility to run the meeting. He granted the Mayor one minute to sum up his comments.) The Mayor agreed and related what had occurred at the committee meeting: Mr. Orlowski gave the professionals assigned seats. He told them, if they wished to speak, they needed to raise their hand. He told them he would direct his question to a particular person and only that person and only that person was permitted to respond. He then violated his own rule by asking his first question which he threw open to everybody. Mr. Miller, who was outside the room, came back into the room asking the same questions that had previously been asked. Safety was being discussed, but Mr. Miller was talking about politics. Regarding the rain event of yesterday, Councilman Barker said he only had three phone calls about minor flooding. He commended the Service Department and the Waste Water Treatment Plant for a job well done. The Mayor agreed there was limited isolated instances of flooding which suggests it's not a systemic problem with the city but rather individual problems with homes. The actions being taken in Service and the WWTP are having a positive effect. Councilman Orlowski noted that at no time during the month of July did he receive a written request to hold a Public Safety committee meeting. There was one telephone call and it was expressed that several members of Council were on vacation, several others had other issues, and several others were unable to make any meetings during that month. Councilman Ryan asked for clarification on the studies being done for the EPA and on Phase II. He quoted one study which said, if sewer rates were not increased there would 4