12/16/2008 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 12/16/2008 class. It has been said many times that there are no specific qualifications for the position of Assistant Fire Chief. There are also no specific qualifications for the positions of Mayor, Safety Director, Service Director, or Director of Community Life Services. It was also stated that only one other fire dept. in the Westshore area has an Assistant Fire Chief. In regards to saving money and laying off personnel, he would propose, when looking at the budget and determining where to cut, that the following numbers be looked at: He looked at the following cities selected by region and population: Westlake, Rocky River, Bay Village, Lakewood, Fairview Park, Shaker Hts., Garfield Hts., Strongsville, Brunswick, North Ridgeville, Cleveland Hts., University Hts. Out of those twelve cities, nine have assistant chiefs for a total of fourteen. One has a dedicated safety director. Unfunding the position of Safety Director and the associated secretary's position, would save the city approximately $145,040 and has a better chance of improving the efficiency of the city administration than the removal of the Assistant Fire Chief position. This past year and a half, it has been his privilege and honor to serve with these patrolmen and these fire fighters. They're the ones that do the job. They don't work for him; he works for them. And it would be his privilege and honor to regain the ranks with them. 16) Jeff Hohenfeld, 13296 Jacque Road, Strongsville Ohio, a Capt. on the North Olmsted Fire Department, wanted to address the statement that these layoffs were not going to affect the service that the Fire Dept. is going to provide. He doesn't know what the exact statement was that the Fire Chief supposedly made, but it's been quoted many times. He thinks everybody in attendance is intelligent enough to know that couldn't possibly be true. He has asked the Fire Chief how he could make such a statement and why he wouldn't come up and explain his statement and retract the statement or qualify the statement, whatever was necessary. The Chief told him that he was ordered not to speak at these meetings. 17) Mary Gut, 6039 Brook Circle, said that everyone is speaking passionately and most people are very courteous and looking and seeming very sincere in wanting to hear what the speakers have to say. When someone is delivering some really passionate words, for somebody else to be snickering or smiling and commenting that those words were enjoyable meanwhile exchanging smiles with the second row, is extremely disrespectful. Regarding how the city spends money, in particular she knows that the Fire Dept. has been involved in a lot of grievances over the years. She has a feeling most of those legal fees the city incurred were from outside the city for legal counsel. If the city would just stop breaching the contract that it has with the fire fighters, we could save a lot of money. Regarding the issue of the department being able to operate with less people, her husband has been on the Fire Dept. for many years, and the amount of runs today as opposed to 20 years ago has doubled or tripled. How can you take men away from that? How can you even think of it? How can you go to sleep at night wondering if somebody is going to come to your house? She questions the wisdom in that. Also, just a few months ago, the Mayor proposed refurbishing the Rec Center into a YMCA that would cost a lot of money. Didn't he know that we were in dire straights back then? Mayor O'Grady answered that what we are encountering today is an economic crisis that we haven't seen in generations. The result of this crisis was not seen six months ago. 15