3 Replies to “January 8, 2024, City Council Meeting”

  1. Smith spews so much BS that council members have become immune to recognizing it. Smith claimed he only updates the policy and procedures manual every two or three years, and he thinks we won’t notice he uses policy manual changes as a vehicle to slide in extra costs to the taxpayers. The last time he did it was for the purpose of asking the council to give him (and the other city staff) Juneteenth as an extra paid holiday, rather than trading an existing holiday for it as many other government entities have done (if they recognized it at all at the time Smith made his request). This change brought the number of paid holidays for city employees to an unprecedented 14 days per year.

    The January 8, 2024, change concerned increasing the DPW clothing allowance from $125/year to $200/year. While I don’t have any objection to this modest increase in the DPW clothing allowance, I do have an objection to Smith’s claim that “while he’s updating the council member names, he would include this change [to the manual] as well,” suggesting that the primary reason for the update was to ensure city council member names were up to date. If updating council member names was important, Smith would modify the manual every time there is a change in council membership.

    Smith told the council the city has the budget for the increase to the DPW clothing allowance, so it’s just policy change, not a budgetary issue. But having enough budget money isn’t the problem. The DPW clothing allowance increase needed to be approved by resolution because it concerns spending tax dollars. If council-approved spending affects a city policy, the policy approval must come after the resolution approval.

    Smith and the city council know whenever the city spends money, it needs to be approved by a council resolution with a recorded vote. The city attorney knows this too, yet he sat silently while this transpired.

    Tell me again why taxpayers are paying the city attorney to sit through every meeting?

  2. The information is still missing for the Consent Agenda on the city website. It seems they are no going to bother to update that.
    As for the sewer rate increase, neither the discussion or the meeting information tell anyone exactly how the City Manager and Treasurer came up with the new amount, what is included and what is not. Per this write-up, “They wanted to watch the last quarterly billing just to confirm all the numbers, Coté and Smith did that, and they’re very confident in the need to, to increase it 9% up to $128. They really don’t have any choice in the matter,…”
    How did they arrive at that? Does it include only the cost of pass through billings from the Township or something more? What about costs of maintenance on the system that only get more expensive as it ages?
    As for “They really don’t have a choice in the matter…” that is not true. They could supplement the cost from other funds. They could look at why costs are increasing and what could be done to reduce the amount used. The cost is based on an assumed use amount, not an actual, so whether you use it a lot or a little, you pay the same based on how you are classified.
    As usual, the city manager gives minimal information, the council never asks for more, and cost increases just get passed along to the taxpayers with almost no effort to control them.

  3. As an aside to this particular meeting information, I have noticed that the City Manager likes to spend money without prior council approval by supposedly keeping the amount below the $500 limit of ordinance section 30.15. However, he should not be hiding these expenses from the council and public, which he likes to do. Yes, if asked, he will admit to it with the excuse that he can do so without prior approval, but if he doesn’t reveal it, how does anyone know how much he spent, for what purpose, and who received the money?

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