The two biggest discussed items at the council meeting this week was the city center project and a proposed charter amendment regarding pay increases for elected officials. Here are my notes on both.
- The city center project has recently had a lot of confusion regarding the direction of the project and those involved in overseeing it. City Council created a SKiP committee two meetings ago to help steer this project. After its creation, we found out that the city administration had already created two committees discussing the city center project, a steering committee focused on funding and a playground committee focused on the project design and components. To help alleviate the confusion and to not dismiss the work already done Council will be amending the legislation for the SKiP committee to merge the current playground committee into the SKiP Committee. Council President did make his appointment of the 3 council members to sit on this committee, he selected Brian Lowdermilk, Mike Rasor, and myself. The administration reported that the steering committee for this project is not currently meeting as they feel they have enough funds pledged to being this project. The administration also reported (confirming what was discussed in my meeting with the mayor) that the plans to add an amphitheater to city center is currently on hold and that the focus is to replace SKiP with a play trail style playground and potentially a splash pad. I look forward to working on this committee and seeing how this plan comes together.
- The second topic was an approved charter amendment that will appear on the ballot in November for voters. This charter amendment will require that any increase in pay for an elected official (city council member, mayor, finance director, or law director) to appear on the ballot at the general election and be approved by the voters. The voters would be provided with the percentage increase and the new salary in the ballot language. Currently, council can change the pay of future council members in the next term, but they can change the pay of the finance director, law director, or mayor within a term. The charter amendment right now is just asking the voters–do you want the charter to be amended to require pay increases to be approved by the voters going forward. I felt that there was not enough feedback from residents to know their feelings on this issue so I chose to vote “yes” on this issue and to put the question go to the voters to see if they want this amendment or not.
Council does not have a 2nd meeting in August, the next meeting will be Thursday September 12th at 7 PM.