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01-19-2010 CCM'I L I CITY IL L L I TTY LL T Y, Y ~9, 2QlQ Members Present: Mayor I~linzing, Councilmembers Zerwas, Motin, Westgaard, and Gumphrey Members Absent: None Staff Present, City Administrator Lori Johnson, Street Superintendent Phil Hals, Assistant Street Superintendent Phil Hals, Fire Chief John Cunningham, Finance Director Tim Simon, City Attorney Peter Beck, and City Clerl~ Tina Allard ~, Call Meeting To Order Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, the meeting of the Elk River City Council was called to order at G,30 p.m. by Mayor K1in~ing, 2. Consider 1 / 19 /201 D Agenda Mayor l~linzing added the following items to the agenda: ® Discussion on City Administrator Performance Review Process ® Fire Chief Letter to the Editor MOVED BY COUNCILMEMBER ZERWAS AND SECONDED BY COUNCILMENIBER WESTG.AARD TO APPROVE THE .AGENDA AS AMENDED. MOTION CARRIED 5-0. 3. Consider Consent Agenda Councilmember Westgaard requested to remove Item 3,1 from the Consent agenda and to add it to the next agenda, MOVED BY COUNCILMEMBER WESTGAARD .AND SECONDED BY COUNCILMEMBER ZERWAS TO APPROVE THE FOLLOWING CONSENT AGENDA; 3.2. CHECK REGISTER 3.3. PAY EQUITY IMPLEMENTATION REPORT; PLACE ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT POSITION]' FOR FIRE AND BUIDLING MAINTENANCE INTO PAY `GRADE 4; PLACE SENIOR ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT INTO PAY GRADE G AND APPROVE ITS POSITI(3N DESCRIPTION 3,4, ONE YEAR EXTENSION OF THE EAGLES MARSH~ADDITION PLAT 3.5. ONE YEAR EXTENSION OF THE HILLSIDE ESTATES PLAT 3.U. PURCHASE CHEVY IMPALA LS FRONT STATE CONTRACT IN T]HE AMOUNT OF X17,459,95 City Cou~.cil Minutes Page 2 ~a~ua~y ~ 9, 201 ~ 3.7, RESOLUTION IUw05 AUTHORIZING CxTY OF ELR RISER TD SUBMIT AN APPLICATION FOR AN ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND CONSERVATION BLOCK GRANT MOTION CARRIED 5-0, 4, open Mike No one appeared for Open Mike. Fire Chief Letter to the Editor Chief Cunningham reviewed his letter to the editor for the Local newspaper and asked for Council feedback as to whether it represents the city's position. He noted tlae letter is in response to a letter submitted last week regarding the competitive bidding process for fire equipment. Ms. ~ohnson stated city staff followed the correct procedures and noted that we don't always get as many bids as we would like. Attorney Beck stated ci~r staff did consult with him on this item, It was Council consensus to move forward with sending the letter as it was drafted, a,1. Annual Street Department Capital Purchases Mr. Hals presented the staff report, MOPED BY COUNCILMEMBER ZERWAS AND SECONDED BY COUNCILMEMBER WESTGAARD TO APPROVE STREET EQUIPMENT PURCHASES A.S OUTLINED IN THE STAFF REPORT, MOTION CARRIED 5~0, ~,2, Verbal Ubdate on Snow Removal Mr, Hals provided an update on the Christmas holiday snow removal. He reviewed hours put in by staff and noted an extra day should have been spent with cleaning the roads up in order for the streets to be in better shape. He stated at tlae time he was given direction that overtime hours must be kept down. Ms, Hals reviewed the amount of salt and sand used and noted the city had to use twice as much as normal due to the late cleanup afterwards. He stated costs were fairly even between whether to allow employee overtime versus using the adcliti.onal salt, Mr, Hals stated staff would be experimenting with a new mixture utilizing beet juice sugar beets} as apre-treatment method, which lowers the melting temperature of salt. Mr. Thompson stated this hasn't been discussed by other departments yet but they may propose continued and additional cooperation from other departments, He stated they are considering the addition of four routes to plow cul-de-sacs, He stated this would help the current fleet of plow trucks focus more on the streets rather than spending a lot o£ time cleaning up cul-de-sacs, which can betime-consuming due to the large size of the regular City Council Minutes ~anuary 19, 200 Page 3 plow trucks, He noted the Building Maintenance Division has a pickup with a plow, Elk Rive~.• Municipal Utilities has afront-end loader, and the Street Division has another plow that could be rigged economically. He further stated this could allow the plow trucks up to 30 additional hours on the streets, Mr. Thompson stated the Street Division appreciates the assistance the other departments have been provi~1ng, The Council noted the following comments, They appreciated the efforts of staff during the unusual storm, especially when they laad to give up their Christmas holiday in order to l~eep others safe in their travels, They wanted to know the work did not go unnoticed and have received positive comments from citizens, Staff should be given more latitude on overtime when it comes to health and safety issues, They noted this is an important service for citizens. It was doted the city would no longer be involved with assisting the County Highway Department for plowing county roads during the initial early morning plowing, 6.1, Public works Director Update Ms, Johnson presented the staff report and stated Terry Maurer has declined the job offer for the public works r11~ector position, She noted the following options: Re-advertise for the position ® Re-evaluate the position description Leave position open for awhile Review organizational structure Consider another option the Council may wish to consider She further noted it's important for the city to have an engineer as soon as possible due to current projects. Counc~1~member Moon suggested hiring a consulting engineer and to let the public works director position remain open for awhile in order to re-evaluate city needs, He suggested waiting until spring/summer, Mayor Z~linzing concurred and suggested scheduling the March worksession to discuss this issue and the organizational structure. Ms. Johnson stated a decision should be made regarding the handling of current engineering needs, Councilmember Moon stated he was fine with using John Anderson for current projects but would prefer to go out for bids for any new projects, N~G~ED B'Y C~JUNCxLNIEMBER M®T~N AND SECONDED BY CDUNCILNiEMBER GUN~PHREY TC~ CDNT~NUE UTZL~~NG THE SERVICES DF JoHN ANDERSON ON CURRENT GNGOING ENGINEERXNG PROJECTS, MCT~~N CARRIED 5-0, City Cou:~cil Minutes. J anuary ~ 9, 2~ 10 Page 4 Ma or i~linzing noted two Council.members suggested reviewing this position and the Y organizational structure at the March worksession and asked if this is the direction the full Council urould like to tape. Councilmember westgaard stated he is not ready to move forward with the worksession and doesn't understand what transph.•ed between Wednesday evening when Council voted to hire Mr. Maurer} and Sunday when Mr. Maurer declined the offer. Mayor i~linzing stated an offer was made to Mr. Maurer and he declined it. She stated na one knows why he declined and now Council needs to move forward with deeding what to do with the public works director position. Council~nember Westgaard questioned if city staff affered the job to Mr. Maurer and 11ow the communication process was handled, 7~e noted Council received a letter from Mr. Maurer stating he declined the job due to the correspondence over the last Few days. Fie questioned what this meant and 11e would like to understand what happened before he can mave forward. Ms. ~ohnson stated she had various meetings on Thursday and Mr. Maurer was out for portions of the day so they weren't able to connect, She stated slae met early Thursday morning with public works staff to tell them that even though Mr. Maurer wasn't staffs choice for public works director, that was who the Council picked, and staff would now mare it work. Sloe stated on Friday morning she sent Mr. Maurer an email meeting request to see if he couid meet that afternoon to negotiate pay and benefits. She stated Mr. Maurer declined the meeting request. Ms. ~ohnson stated she responded back to Mr. Maurer and asked that he call her so they can discuss the employment terms, She stated she informed the other candidate on Friday that he didn't get the position, Councilmember Zer•was stated Mr. Maurer sent an email to Ms. ~ohnson indicating he would be in on Monday between 9:00 a.m. and noon and they could discuss it then. Councdmember Zetwas .further noted Ms. ~ohnson replied to Mr. Maurer stating that he is not to report to work as he is no longer a contracted employee but that he should call so they could work through the terms of his employment. Councilmember Zerwas stated Mr. Maurer may not have felt welcomed as a result of the response, Ms. ~ohnson stated the contract with Mr, Maurer had expired and lae wasn't yet a city employee and typically employees don't start worl~ing until the employment terms have been approved by Council. She further stated that Mr. Maurer contacted Ms. Astrup with the ilk .Diver Star.Zl~e~s sometime on Friday to let her know he didn't plan to accept the position. Councilmember Moon noted this was a unique situation but stated that Mr. Maurer acktaowledged in his own email that he was no longer in contract with tl~e city and not yet a city employee. He stated he is not sure why Mr. Nfaurer declined and suggested it could be due to the Council vote or to the employee issues. Cauncilmember Moon stated he is not sure it is still a viable option to offer the position to Mr. Maurer or whether it should be offered to the second choice candidate but he would be okay with it if Council wanted to move in that direction. Councilmember Moon stated the Council needs to move forward on this issue. He stated when the interview committee was completing interviews of candidates it was unclear on whether it was necessary to have the engineering certif cations for the pasition or if the city City Council Minutes Page 5 January 19, 2010 would be limiting the best possible canclidates by requiring it. He stated Council could review the position description to make adjustments i£ needed, Councilmembex Gumphrey concurred with the need to move forward. He suggested xe advertising fox the position immediately, Councilrnember Motin stated an engineer is needed but questioned the necessity of f 11ing the public works director position, Mayor Klinzing suggested listing engineering qualif cations as a desired qualification on the position description but not have it be required, Councilmembex ~westgaaxd reiterated he was not ready to move forward with a decision tonight, Councilme~nber Motin stated he didn't see that Ms. Johnson did anything wrong or was unwelcoming, He stated Mr, Maurer was in the office on Friday but didn't respond to the meeting request email until after he left in the afternoon, He stated i£ Mr. Mauxex has issues working with Ms, Johnson, it was his issue, Mayox I~linzing agreed and stated she sent an email to Mx, Mauxex inviting laim to lunch and giving every indication she wanted to move forward with him in tlae position, Councilmember Zerwas stated the Council needs to regroup and it's important to keep the position description inline with where it is now, He questioned if the Maxch worksession would work to xeview the position description, Mayox I~linzing stated this item would be added to the Maxch worl~session agenda, 7. ether Business Discussion on City ~.dminiftrator .~erfarmanc~e Aevie~ I'roc~ess Mayox l~linzing distributed same sample performance evaluation forms and noted a decision needed to be made on which forms to use, The Council agxeed upon the following process. ~ Utilize performance form number 3, ~ Forms to be sent and returned to the Mayor. Put on cover letter that staff is encouraged to make comments and to rely only on the rating system, Mayor and Acting Mayox to meet and compile the information. Ms, Johnson's direct reports, Peter Beck, Lori Johnson, Phil Hals, and the City Council axe to complete the form, Council questioned i£ there was the possibility for them to meet in closed session prior to the performance review meeting in order to xeview the £oxms Ms, Johnson suggested checking state law to make sure it was possible and to determine haw to set it up. Staff and the city attorney will report back to the Council on this issue, City Council Minutes January 19, 200 8. Council Updates Page C~ Councilmember Moon stated the Northstar Commuter Rail is allowing overnight parl~ing in a limited number of designated parl~ing spaces on a txial basis in their lot, 9, Staff Updates Ms. ~ohnson asked for Council authorization to send a Letter of Intent for a new stimulus grant by the Department of Commerce, The grant would allow commercial and industrial businesses to apply for loans for energy efficiency projects, She noted a match. would be req~~jred by the city that could be funded from the Revolving Loan Fund, 1t was Council consensus to send the letter. 10, Adjournment There being no further business, Mayor I~.li.nzing adjourned the meeting of the Ells River City Council at 7,40 p,m, She further stated the City Council will go into a Closed Session pursuant to Attorney~Client Privilege, MN Statute 13D,05, subd, 3~b~, for the purposes of discussing the Cla.err~rhills Bluff Dutlot .~l~.wsuit, ~~~.~ u,~... ......- TinaAllard, City Clerk ~ -- ~ , ~~~~~~ Stephar~e Klinzing, Mayd