01/06/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 1/6/2009 of the city government and on the side of the city schools government. The principals have been consulted with. The teachers will be far more active. The parents are being advised of these. changes. That's what the schools are doing. On the city side, we are increasing police activity just as the transition takes place. We're going to do the responsible things we need to do in a changing world with changing demographics. Ms Mackrell said she spoke to two principals today who were not aware of the situation. Mayor O'Grady suggested that she speak to Supt. Dubsky about that. 14) Bea Sidaway, 28675 Holly Drive, asked a favor of the Mayor as she noted he sent out the layoff letters the day before Thanksgiving. Does he know what a miserable Thanksgiving and Christmas those families had? She asked him not to send out any new layoff letters on Valentine's Day. Mayor O'Grady said that actually the Mayor doesn't send out those letters, but he'll take her comments into advisement as to timing and thanks for that. 15) Don Pangrac, 23470 Sharon Drive, said for the last two or three years he and Mr. Barrett have been advocating budgets being started in July and having it pretty much wrapped up by the time December comes around. That hasn't happened. He hopes that the Mayor and Council will make a strong effort to move the budgeting process so that they have a much better understanding of where they are going to be financially by September or October. We don't know what the future holds, but his prediction, and he's had 50-some years in finance, is that this economy is not going to turn around in one year, or two years, or three years. This is only the tip of the iceberg so please keep that in mind when sitting at the negotiating table, when sitting and discussing these issues, that it's not going to get better, it's going to worse. We've got to be ready for that. Mayor O'Grady said he agreed fully on the budget question. Traditionally, the budget is provided to Council in mid-February and then Council acts on it in March. He has been working on accelerating that process. In fact, it's unprecedented in the city of North Olmsted, but this administration presented the budget to Council in December, and it is the intent within the next couple of years of presenting the budget even sooner with the idea of wrapping all deliberations before the end of the year. 16) Jeff Homolak, 5647 Whitehaven Avenue, is 16 years old and very much into politics and keeps up with everything to do with the city. About the layoffs, his father is struggling to keep his job also. The economy is doing so horrible, everyone has to fear a job practically. Why should we just save the Safety workers? They do protect our city, but we could do some cuts to save money. Tax abatements in the past have really ruined our city. We need to stop the tax abatements with the businesses coming in. He has noticed lights on in the evening at the Fire Dept. and at the city garage. We need to shut off the lights to save money a little bit at a time. Start little and then get bigger. Stop with the taxes and just start saving money a little bit at a time. 21