01/06/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 1/6/2009 their jobs. How can the Mayor say that? He is sure Law Director Dubelko would have never recommended those comments be made. This union has given the administration the framework to bring back those people and save additional layoffs. As a union, they are asking the elected officials to make the right decisions and prioritize. Mayor O'Grady said he disagreed totally with the statements and with the accusation contained therein. 9) Jennifer Rudolph, 3329 Walter Road, will not advocate one way or another on the tax credit as it is a very difficult decision. She would like to see the results of that decision not be politicized. She doesn't want to hear about how the administration presented something late, and she doesn't want to hear the administration blame Council for any layoffs that occur if the tax credit is voted down. Such things do a service to no one and do not help the situation. Both groups are supposed to work together. It does a disservice to all residents who would be affected, whether thousands of people who will be paying additional taxes, or those who would be laid off, for people to be scoring political points off each other or jockeying for position for November based on the results of that. She hopes that will not be done. 10) Dave Huspaska, 491 Sub Station, Brunswick Hills, a Sgt. in the North Olmsted Police Dept., has been part of the negotiating committee for several years. He knows all the firemen and policemen who are being laid off. Those people as well as himself would do anything for each other, and would do anything for the city. They would have given up things to save this, but none of this was ever brought to their attention that the city was in dire straits. Had they known, they could have formulated a plan to keep the jobs. The citizens of North Olmsted need to understand that crime is shooting up. When safety forces are cut, people will not get the services they deserve. Recently, they arrested five burglars who have broken into people's home. When safety forces are cut, especially Police Dept., somebody is going to get hurt. Somebody needs to be accountable for that. It's got to be the Mayor. He is the top dog and needs to be responsible. Mayor O'Grady said that was right. 11) Kevin Drake, 2783 Walter Road, is learning a lot about city government. He asked how many directors the city had, and Mayor O'Grady answered there are seven. Two are elected by the people and five are appointed by the Mayor. He noted that he had brought forward a proposed Charter change last year that would have allowed the Mayor to not fill a position of a director and coordinate and consolidate the duties of two directors into one. This was rejected by the Council and never got to the voters. Mr. Drake said he doesn't know much about city government but working for a large corporation he knows that in lean times you often have to cut people in higher positions. He is not picking on any particular directors, but in lieu of getting rid of people who are essential that are out there actually doing the work, sometimes you might have to do that. We might have to change the Charter and maybe eliminate some of these higher, loftier positions if even on a temporary basis until times get better. He said that most revenue comes into the city from people living in the city, from housing. Maybe we need to build the 29 houses if it's going to bring more revenue into the city. He sees a lot of vacant stores. Stores don't bring in a lot of revenue. He knows there's a lot of tax abatements that go along 19