03/09/2010 Commissioners Meeting

One item on the agenda was a federal grant for the fire department which has been discussed in several previous meetings. This grant provided money and obligated the city to increase the total of employees at the fire department to 35. This was about 3 years ago when the economy was thriving. Since then the economy slowed and bottom line no extra employees were hired. Today it was stated there are 27 full time employees and several part time.
In this meeting City Manager Nagy recommended that the city cancel the grant. Mr Nagy stated, “it is not feasible or economical to do now” He also stated, “we are on the hook to refund the federal government around $75,000.”

Mr Nagy further stated, “they were down to 27 employees because of retirement and resignation they needed to hire 3 right away to get back to 30 employees. Then he stated, don’t consider going over 30 without additional grant activity to help us.”

After discussing the matter, the mayor and city commissioners all voted to cancel the grant and repay the $75,000.

Even though the city had to repay the money, it was sound fiscal policy to do at this time to me.

Another item was the 2nd reading of the weed ordinance. Of course, you know I had sign the public comment sheet on this one to speak up because this is what started my attending all these meetings in the first place.

After the ordinance was read by the city attorney, I was allowed to join into the conversation by Mayor Thornton. They actually listened and I think agreed with most that I said. We all had what I would consider a good open discussion on the issues and was not a shouting match. After our discussion at least they all voted to table the ordinance until next meeting instead of voting on it right now. That would give the city attorney time to consider my recommendations and hopefully re-write them into the new ordinance. I guess we will find out in the next meeting.

It sounds like a petty issue in one way, but my family and me have lived the past two summers with weeds and grass 3ft to 5ft tall constantly surrounding our house in the City of Paris. They are vacant lots for sale but the property owners refuse to keep the properties mowed liked the city ordinance states. And to compound the problem the city was dragging their feet all last summer to enforce the ordinance.

Next time I will continue with more on this meeting

Until next time,