CITY COUNCIL MEETING COMMENTS

CITY OF GOLD BAR COUNCIL MEETING NOTES

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

(By Joe Beaver)

The following are from my notes taken at the council meeting. They are not intended to be minutes of the meeting. My [personal] comments are in italics.

This was a regular council meeting. John Light was not in attendance as he was at a family function. Robert Amenn was not in attendance and had called in. Chief Ruchty was not in attendance. Amenn was excused on a 4-0 vote.

AGENDA APPROVAL

The agenda was modified to add an action item for the city web site and then approved on a 4-0 vote.

MINUTES APPROVAL

Crystal reported that they are making a huge dent in the backlog of the minutes. Laura is working on them during her maternity leave. They expect to have a flood of minutes for approval at the next regular meeting.

VOUCHER APPROVAL

Warrants were presented at the start of the meeting, so that council members did not have the opportunity to review them before the meeting. Dorothy asked for time to review them before responding. She also asked if any checks had gone out on these warrants, Crystal said no.

Questions were raised on fire extinguisher inspection costs and on mailing services costs. Denise pulled the invoices in order to accurately answer the questions. There were expenses for business cards on one warrant, and Richard said he could get business cards printed for free in the future.

Dorothy raised the question of City Attorney costs. They have been:

July $ 3,275

Aug $ 2,918

Sep $ 1,616.

Dorothy and Richard asked for copies of the City Attorney’s invoices.

The warrants did not include payroll. Crystal said there was a question on payroll for September, and she was to review that first. She also noted that there was a $100,000 billing to the city for the First Street Bridge, but that was simply a pass-through to the county and did not affect Gold Bar finances.

The warrants were approved on a 4-0 vote.

MAYOR’S REPORT

Crystal reported on an increase of about $ 17,000 in the cost of the First Street Bridge. She had to sign off on the increase without first getting council approval due to time constraints. Again, this is a pass-through cost, no effect on Gold Bar finances.

The committee to select a City Clerk/Treasurer (CCT) met for the first time last week to set qualifications. The position will remain open for two weeks and interviews are scheduled for the third week of October. People who have applied to date will be notified of the qualifications and schedule.

Crystal noted that the new CCT may have a possible conference immediately upon starting. The State Auditor will send a specialist to help train the new person. Crystal asked that the current temp position be converted to a full-time employee.

Crystal thanked Lonn, Ray, and Joe for their work on staining City Hall (see below for additional volunteers who worked on it ).

Dorothy asked about the ASP (city computer software ) training costs. Crystal said that most costs were paid by the state, she was not sure what would be charged to the city. Dorothy said she could not find any vouchers this year for the ASP annual cost. Crystal said she would check into this.

STAFF REPORTS

No staff reports were made.

COUNCIL COMMENTS

Dorothy said she had talked to John about the electronic payroll and that he didn’t care if it was electronic or manual. She said she would prefer a manual system where the council had to approve the payroll before checks were issued. There was additional discussion on some payroll issues that Dorothy and Crystal were to resolve behind closed doors at a later time.

Lonn said the city should buy a Santa and Mrs. Claus outfit for about $500 so that we didn’t have to borrow from the Fire Department, whose outfits are worn. He noted that there will be a Haunted House in Sultan to raise money for the Sultan Senior Class and urged all to attend.

Lonn noted that next year’s schedule for the reformatory work crew is being set up. This crew will consist of eight men working seven hours at a cost of about $164. He suggested that we contract with them for one day per week from April through September for various maintenance jobs.

Lonn noted that Gold Dust Days was progressing. It is scheduled for July 27, 28, and 29. He is working with Al Robinson on the layout of school grounds and expects that the Fire Department will sponsor it as a non-profit operation. He asked for $400 from the city for a three-month ad in Cruising Magazine to advertise the car show portion. Crystal said she would personally fund the ad.

Richard noted that there would be a Pancake Breakfast at the Sultan Middle School on Sunday, October 22, from 9AM-1PM.

Jerry discussed his evaluation of the ICMA retirement savings plan that the city uses. He noted that the savings were capped at $15,000 per year and was intended to be a supplement to PERS.

Dorothy then noted that she had not seen any ICMA warrants this year. Denise noted that the first bill had been received this morning.

Richard brought up the budget process and noted that last year the budget process started on October 18. Crystal said there would be no proposed budget until the new City Clerk/Treasurer was on board and that the council might have to meet two or three times per week to resolve the issues.

CITIZEN COMMENTS

Bert McClellan said he enjoyed having a quiet council meeting. He then said that after the last budget was approved, he asked John Light if streets and crosswalks would be painted this year. John said yes. Bert noted that not all crosswalks had been done, mentioning First and Lewis. Crystal said there was some sort of problem getting the proper paint.

Ray Coleman noted that the crosswalk paint at Fifth and Lewis was holding up well. He noted that Starla Shaulis and Chuck Lie also contributed to the staining of city hall. He noted that there is a problem with the gable vents, where snow can create water damage, that Lonn and John need to do a walk-around. He said that there was $4,000 in the budget for maintaining city hall, that with the use of volunteers, the total expense for staining was only $400. He stated that the flu shots available at city hall in November should be widely advertised in the city and suggested contacting stay-at-home seniors and disabled to see if they needed a ride to city hall. He asked about some sort of grant for Block Watch support and Crystal said she would contact the Sno County Department of Emergency Management about this.

NEW BUSINESS

1) Discussion concerning personnel policy amendments

Dorothy said the city used to have comp time at eight hours per month instead of the eight hours administrative time we now have. Crystal said the change was made to make it more trackable for a part-time mayor. Dorothy thought that there was an additional 96 hours per year of wages paid. Crystal said that might have been a way to give a pay raise to exempt employees at the time when there was a wage freeze in place.

A discussion of handling exempt time record keeping and overtime compensations was then held. Dorothy said she had scrutinized all the time cards and found discrepancies. Crystal asked if they had occurred during her tenure, Dorothy said yes, Crystal then asked Dorothy to bring her up to speed on this later. The discussion continued on different ways that employers handled exempt overtime. The discussion ended with the question of how to handle accrued vacation time with Crystal to discuss the different options with the staff.

This item was then Tabled to Old Business to be reviewed later.

2) Discussion concerning city web site

Richard noted that the Verizon plan the city uses does not include web service. He then reviewed four different web hosting services, settling on GoDaddy for its price ($6.29 per month) and features. Crystal noted that her firm uses GoDaddy and is well pleased with the service.

A motion was made to go with GoDaddy pending approval from the City Attorney. It passed 4-0.

OLD BUSINESS

Untabling the Finalize UGA strategy - passed 4-0.

Note: The Planning Department Services (PDA) is the county office that technically evaluates UGA expansions (among other jobs). Their charter is to strictly interpret the laws and to report to the County Planning Commission (CPC). The CPC has some latitude in interpreting the laws and allowing variances. The CPC then forwards their recommendations to the County Council for approval who then forwards them to the County Executive for acceptance or veto.

Crystal discussed her meeting with the CPC from last week. The PDA had rejected Gold Bar’s UGA expansion of 193 acres NW of the city. The PDA had rejected the application as it was based on septic systems, not a sewer system (this was the PDA’s strict interpretation of what ‘urban” entailed, i.e. a sewer system is an inherent part of an urban environment, it is up to the CPC to relax the interpretation). Crystal noted that this same expansion had been approved by the CPC and the County Council in the previous cycle, but had been vetoed by the County Executive. Crystal felt that the CPC will agree with Gold Bar this time through. The CPC will make its decision this Friday (Oct 6).

Subsequent discussions covered the projected population goal (4,500 in 20 years), how much a sewer system might increase that number (quadrupled), what effect a current retirement in the PDA might have on this type of decision, what the impacts on the City Comprehensive Plan might be with the addition of a sewer system (lots of additional work), and the different agencies involved in growth plans. Richard pointed out that if Gold Bar does not get its expansion, the County would likely handle growth around Gold Bar.