12/16/2008 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 12/16/2008 shortfall of $1.5 to $2 million, even that doesn't seem to be determined yet. How do we get into so much debt and just now be made aware of it? The taxpayers have a right to know. There are a lot of questions to be answered about this and about what will happen to these young people. These officers have been well trained for specific careers. We are losing a valuable source of young and able manpower. What a shame this is. 12) John Daniels, 4000 Fielding Drive, is an air traffic control specialist and has seen cuts such as this at the federal level. This will result in more seasoned employees leaving because of the mistreatment of management. Their expertise, knowledge, and instincts will be lost. They will not be there to train the younger people who are coming on. He has seen this happen in his job. He suggested that a Mayor's court would help to keep the money from traffic tickets here in this city. Mayor O'Grady said he disagrees with mayors' courts in principle. Additionally, very rarely does the mayor actually sit as the magistrate-someone would be hired to be the magistrate. Also, the General Assembly is currently looking to restrict those courts very significantly. And they need to because it's too wide of a range between a professional attorney who's a magistrate and maybe some country mayor. That's not justice. Mr. Daniels wondered what the cost would be to hire a magistrate and if it would be less than the percentage that goes to the Rocky River Municipal Court. He wonders if anyone in the city is thinking outside of the box and perhaps that is why the city is in this situation. He does not think laying off police officers is a good because of the reason noted by another speaker about visibility. If you have more than one officer addressing a situation, it more than likely will be resolved. 13) Bryan Gallagher, a fire fighter/paramedic, who is being laid off, asked how six, seven or eight people are going to do the work of ten people without seeing a drop in the level of service? It's obvious there will be a drop. He has worked here for almost three years, and it was an absolute pleasure to work with the great guys of the Fire Department and to serve the great citizens of the city. He tells his friends on Cleveland EMS how thankful people in North Olmsted are when they receive the services of the department. His friends in Cleveland tell him that they get thanked about once a year. This just shows what great people we have in North Olmsted and they deserve the best service out there. 14) Denise Geschwender, 6201 Somerset Drive, moved here five years ago from Niagara Falls, NY. One thing she was looking for was safety, and she didn't think there could be a more corrupt administration than Niagara Falls had. But she was wrong. She is now embarrassed to say she lives in North Olmsted because the men and women who work on these safety forces deserve to be here. She knows, when she dials 911, they won't be coming to her house. 15) Todd Kirkpatrick, 8575 Apple Hill Road, Bainbridge, Township, Assistant Fire Chief. On Thursday, December 4, 2008, he was looking at a copy of the city of North Olmsted budget, a budget which he was supposed to help create as part of my duties yet was left out of the meetings. He noticed the decrease in appropriations for the line item 13