12/02/2008 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 12/2/2408 introduced members of the department who received layoff notices: Shaun Kasza, Kevin Zywiec, Bryan Gallagher, Frank Selig, Mike Fusco. Each of these members of the Fire Dept. have less than three years on the department. Some of them left positions at other fire departments to come to the city of North Olmsted thinking that this city was pretty much in a good standing. Now they have nothing to fall back on. Councilman Gareau explained that Council just received a copy of the draft budget for 2009 this evening. He offered his copy to Mr. Coyle. Finance Director Copfer commented that she would be providing copies to the unions during the negotiations sessions the next day. She was not aware of their request for previous budgets, but she will provide that information as well. 6) Janet Saringer, 23336 Stoneybrook Drive, said we are all experiencing hard times today, and she is in attendance to support the safety forces and oppose the potential layoff of the five police officers and firemen. She noted the Mayor had indicated he took a lot of pain and effort trying to work through the budget. When it comes to laying off police and fire, she is wondering if there azen't other areas to be cut. She can think of several things that are possible: Leaf collection, which we have done without temporarily in the past. Perhaps we could temporarily go back to bagging leaves. She asked whether a Planning Director was necessary since we have the Planning & Design Commission and ARB and whether the Community Life Services Dept. was necessary as she believed those services are offered at the county level. These services are good if the money is available, but with potential layoffs of our safety forces, she doesn't think we can consider them a necessity. She asked if the Mayor needed two secretaries. She felt it was unbelievable in these times of terrorism that the city would eliminate police and firemen. She agrees with Council pay cuts and feels it should be more of a volunteer effort. She hoped these suggestions would be given consideration at the Finance Committee meeting. 7) Mary Gut, 6039 Brook Circle, agreed that desperate people do desperate things in desperate times. Today she had a test at a clinic and surprisingly found it was not busy. When she questioned this, she was told times are tough and people are not getting their regular testing done. She believes that this is a reflection of the times, and we will see people waiting to have health services done which is going to cause an increase in Fire Dept. runs. Her home was broken into a few weeks ago while her family was at home. She would like to know that her daughter would be safe when home alone. 8) David Hoelter, 4985 Porter Road, spoke about an accident that happened in front of his home a year ago when a young man came close to being killed. Without the response of safety forces, he doesn't know what would have happened. Also, recently he needed the services of the Police Dept. and is concerned that residents will not have the services of a first responder to get the facts, make out a report, and take care of the issue in a short- term time. As a resident, he is concerned about the safety of our community. 14