12/02/2008 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 12/2/2008 unacceptable. We all live and work in an excellent city. The services are excellent, and the people are excellent. With these proposed layoffs, he is concerned about two things: the safety of the citizens, and the safety of his fellow officers. With these layoffs, safety is put in jeopardy, and we can't have that. We need to find the money to keep the safety forces intact. He thinks the Police Dept. has sacrificed enough throughout the years for the betterment of the city of North Olmsted. He feels the city's management team has been fiscally irresponsible in managing the finances. He thinks the city needs to look beyond today and assess things like other city entities that are drowning the finances of the city because the Police Dept. has and will continue to do its part in helping the city. He loves being a police officer, and he wants the five young officers (the officers who received the layoff notices were sitting in the front row) to have the opportunities that he has had and to work for the city. They are good people, every one of them. 5) Dan Coyle, secretary of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 1267, North Olmsted Fire Dept. The fire fighters are in attendance because they are concerned for the city, for our citizens, and for our fire fighters. They are extremely concerned aver the layoffs that have been announced within the city and particularly. those within the Dept. of Safety. They understand the tough and uncertain economic future this country and city face, but they feel that this budget is being balanced on the backs of the Safety departments, the safety of our residents, and the safety of our fire fighters. They feel that other options may exist that may not require or could prevent the need for these layoffs. They are here tonight asking for full public disclosure of the finances of the city. They have requested copies of the budgets for 2007, 2008, and the proposed budget in 2009. As of this date, they have not received them. They need this information to better understand the financial situation of the city the Mayor claims that we are in. The fire fighters are willing to do their part to help during this time, but they cannot do it alone. If the financial situation of the city is as dire as the Mayor and administration has presented it, then provide them with the budget information so they can help and do their part. The city will need to work as a team with their employees, not against their employees in order to move forward in a cooperative effort. With regard to the legislative request to change the organizational chart of the Fire Dept., they are asking Council to vote no to change the organizational chart of the Fire Dept. as they see no rational reason to make any such change. The only purpose to make such a change in the organization of the Fire Dept. is to give the administration the ability to make arbitrary changes to the staffing within the Fire Dept. without regard to purpose or need. The city has ability to make the changes based on Civil Service rules currently in existence. Approving these legislative changes make the process to change staffing in the Fire Dept. very arbitrary at the least. They urge a no vote to these changes-do not give the administration the ability to make changes in safety at the expense of the citizens and without regard to the Civil Service rules. The Police Dept. spoke of a direct impact these layoffs will have to their service. Some of the direct impacts to the Fire Dept. will be a lack of training: far hazardous materials members, for structural collapse team members, for SWAT team members who serve the SWAT team as medics. All of these positions will probably be cut. When he has to say he can't respond to a call from police officers when they're going through a door at a high-risk warrant service, he will feel terrible if something happens to them. And if something does happen to them, it will be on the backs of everybody else. He 13