01/06/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 1/6/2009 a plan. What has been stated about Mr. Ryan is also factual. At the June 3 Council meeting, he discussed a letter written by Mr. Ryan to the Westlife about doing away with the 2% income tax credit. He asked the question that night that there seemed to be a discrepancy between questions raised by Mr. Ryan in his letter and what had been publicly stated. The answer he got was, (read from minutes) "Mayor O'Grady commented, as previously stated for the record, there is no intent on the part of this administration to recommend to Council any change in the current system with regard to the 2% credit on income tax. That is not being considered." That was June 3. But, as Mr. Gareau did state, for many months it was stated by the Finance Director that the city was looking at a 1 to 1.5 million dollar deficit. To be honest, an income tax increase certainly crossed his mind many times and that's why he asked the question. He agrees with everything Mr. Gareau stated tonight. Mayor O'Grady said he took exception with the comments of Mr. Gareau. He thinks they were misleading and not useful. His comment specifically that the income tax credit reduction was the first thing brought forward is ludicrous. We have said jointly for 3 %i years that government must become more efficient. We must reduce the cost of doing business, and we've been doing that. Under no circumstances would we ever consider any tax increase until we have done everything within our power to reduce costs in the city. We have reached that point. We didn't reach it in June when he made those comments. We reached it after September, after the national economy tanked and it got worse and worse and we finally had a problem that could not be dealt with without the necessity of layoffs. It's sad, but that's where we are. What we have to work on now is moving forward. We have to do those things that must be done, to include an adjustment to the income tax credit now so we save future jobs. Otherwise, without question, more will go. Councilman Gareau stated that it does great disservice to us to continue to see this conversation turn to: "you're dishonest, you're disingenuous, you're comments aren't useful, you're wrong, you've done a disservice to the community" and words to that effect. It does nothing to the discussion, and it doesn't move us forward. Yet, they continue to happen meeting, after meeting. His pledge is to let our actions be our words. Let's have the vote tonight, and then let's get busy. This Council will be more than happy to work with the administration. He has sat down with the directors and gone through the budget and the presentations. Five hours were spent at a Finance Committee meeting going through the issues. His solemn promise is that Council will get busy and will not get down into the dishonest, disingenuous, not useful stuff. That's his position. Councilman Ryan commented that he and Councilman Gareau both know that nothing is going to be done until they have a budget in front of them. And line by line, this Council has a right to strike money out of that budget. Until that happens, why are we talking about getting more income? 8) Bill Saringer, 6256 Surrey Drive, chairman of the negotiating committee for the Police, said he concurs somewhat with what Dave Boatman of the Fire Dept. said. He doesn't know if Mayor O'Grady consulted with his labor lawyer, Gary Johnson, when he made comments to Bob Drake, one of the laid off employees. When you read about things in the paper and you have reporters call you and indicate what the Mayor is telling them, that's not negotiating in good faith. When you have an affected employee and you go to him and you're the Mayor and say: hey, if your guys give back 5%, we'll save all 18