MOUNT VERNON — At Monday’s council meeting, new council members Jeff Gottke, Chris Menapace and Matt Starr signaled they have ideas they want to bring to the table.
Gottke said that he has researched the problems the city has had and “can’t quite seem to get a handle on.”
“One thing keeps coming up over and over, and that’s the issue of personnel,” he said. “I talked with human resource professionals, council members and members of administration, and all of them seem supportive of at least exploring the possibility of creating a separate human resources position for the city.”
He asked Councilman John Francis, chairman of the Personnel and Employee Relations Committee, to schedule a committee meeting to discuss the idea.
“A lot of people I’ve talked to said we’ve dodged some bullets and we’ve put ourselves out there in terms of liability. This is a really complicated professional job now with all of the laws that have to be followed. I don’t have to tell you guys that,” he told administration officials.
Safety-service Director Joel Daniels said he supports the idea of creating an HR position. “Obviously, I’m in a position where a lot of that criticism has come my way over the years, and I absolutely agree with you that these are the things that give us the most headaches, personnel issues,” he said.
Daniels said he handles the discipline areas and City Auditor Terry Scott tries to handle the insurance areas, but “we are not HR professionals.” “So I support your thinking on that,” he told Gottke.
Francis scheduled a committee meeting before council’s next meeting on Monday, Feb. 12, to discuss the issue.
Menapace requested that the agenda packets sent out before each council meeting be sent out at noon Wednesday rather than late Friday afternoon as is the custom.
“If we get it on Friday at close of business, how do we research anything?” he asked. “It’s our responsibility to really understand the legislation we’re voting on.”
Noting that thus far legislation has been fairly routine, Menapace said that “once we start getting more intricate, we’re going to need to speak with each other offline, speak with department heads offline, speak with administration offline. Now, we only truly have Monday to do that.”
Discussion centered on whether all of the information is available by Wednesday, what amount of information would need to be added after Wednesday’s deadline and adding items after notice of the meeting is published. Mayor Richard Mavis said that on some issues, administration officials are hard-pressed to get the research done and legislation written in time for the Friday deadline.
Council President Bruce Hawkins suggested that items that really need study could be sent on Wednesday and more routine housekeeping matters such as paying bills could be sent out on Friday. Council agreed to try a Wednesday deadline for the Feb. 12 meeting and see how things go.
Menapace also encouraged council members to challenge the process of suspending the rules and waiving the required three readings of legislation.
Starr said that he will be asking a lot of questions about safety, quality and productivity when it comes to approving purchases and city projects.
“That’s important to me to not only be able to justify the purchases, but I want to be able to eloquently articulate why these purchases and projects are so important. And nothing works better than cold, hard facts,” he said.
