[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 12-08-09

Fri Dec 11 19:26:46 MST 2009

Yes.
This is something I'm sure Pam and the others serving understand, but for the larger group: it is the responsibility of the the council to make sure the city has proper procedures in place to recruit, hire and retain the best employees the city can, but NOT be involved in the individual day-to-day choices following those policies. Little is more damaging to the public good than political interjection into hiring and promotion. Clearly, the highest level staff, such as chief, is important for council approval, but middle-level staffing, not. If for some reason the council is worried about how that is being done, they should take it up with the chief and the mayor etc. 

-----Original Message-----
From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com on behalf of Pam Walzer
Sent: Fri 12/11/2009 6:36 PM
To: Bob Jaffe
Cc: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 12-08-09

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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