[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 12-08-09

[Pam Walzer]

I stepped in as chair for Dave Strohmaier in Public Safety & Health. It was
a very quite day. Our only action was to confirm the Mayor's appointment of
Jeff Logan as Assistant Fire Chief. There was a question as to why we are
confirming this appointment and no longer fire captain or other promotions.
So for those who are interested, City Attorney, Jim Nugent, has written a
City Attorney's Opinion on this topic:
http://mt-missoula.civicplus.com/Archive.aspx?ADID=1451

Coincidentally, I attended a municipal risk assessment training seminar a
couple of weeks ago in Hamilton. Employee hiring, promotion and firing and
city councils/commissions involvements/interference was one of the
many items discussed that city electeds and staff might do to make our
insurance company sweat. All of the other issues discussed aside, according
to Montana code, the initial hiring of police officers and fire fighters
(public safety officers) are to be affirmed by city councils/commissions. In
addition, the promotion or hiring of police/fire chiefs and and their
assistants also require council/commission confirmation. Everything in
between is not in the purview of councils/commissions. Nugent's opinion
reflects this for the specific fire fighter promotion discussion and the
Hamilton Police Chief was quick to point out there are duplicate rules for
police officers.

It took me longer to write this than the actual length of the meeting!

Pam Walzer
Missoula City Council
Alderwoman, Ward 2

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 9:32 PM, Bob Jaffe <BJaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us> wrote:

>  Greetings,
>
> This morning I was feeling like if I didn’t just stop and go back to bed I
> would succumb to whatever illness I’ve been fighting off. So I skipped all
> the meetings but Public Works today.
>
>
>
> In public works we bought a bunch of stuff including a front end loader for
> $117,000, a ford fusion hybrid for $25,000, and five new charger patrol cars
> for $24,000 each.
>
> We learned that the hybrids have worked out real well for the city and have
> been lower maintenance than expected. The police cars also have a cost of
> about another third for all the accessories they require.
>
>
>
> The next item was a right of way encroachment for the new GLR office
> building going up on the old Scooterville site.  They are installing ground
> source heat pumps and need to drill wells. The 200 gallon per minute well
> was drawing down forty feet. I think he said they only expected it to draw
> down about fifteen feet. So they needed a new encroachment permit to try
> again on the other end of their property near the corner of Pine and Ryman.
>
>
>
> We also learned about a complication with the contract to replace the sewer
> line that crosses the river near reserve street.  It turns out that a bidder
> that was originally considered disqualified came back $40,000 less than the
> other low bid. They had not participated in some kind of pre-bid conference
> that the RFP called for. The public works department is trying to decide if
> they can work with them. The other bidder, who thought they had the job, was
> not too happy and thinks the other guy should be disqualified. They were
> going to try to get it all sorted out and bring it back next week.
>
>
>
> We also talked about a detail in the parking/sidewalk ordinance that sets
> the default financing for sidewalk SIDs. Sidewalks can be financed with 8,
> 12, or 20 year financing. When we send out the assessment letters we ask
> people how they want to pay. If we don’t get a response we default to eight
> year financing. The request was to change that to 20 year.  The committee
> was not too fond of this idea. Many assessments come in less than a thousand
> dollars. It would be absurd to finance that out twenty years.  We asked for
> language that made it switch to twenty year when the assessment was over
> $5000.  We set a public hearing for the second week of January.
>
>
>
> Thanks for your interest,
>
>
>
> Bob Jaffe
>
> Missoula City Council, Ward 3
>
> 1225 South 2nd West
>
> Missoula, MT 59801
>
> (406) 728-1052
>
>
>
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