Blog: City Hall and Employee Contracts

The meeting of Tuesday, July 17th, 2012 started with the normal Pledge to our Flag as well as an invocation. We then moved on to recognize the sponsors of the 4th of July Fireworks show. These folks donated a lot of money to make it all happen and happen it did. This was, in many opinions, the best show yet! Thanks to our staff on a good production as well!

Next we had the most important portion of the meeting, public comment. This is where anyone can step up and talk about anything. I have always felt that this is the most popular part of the meeting because this is the only level of government that listens. Doesn’t mean we all agree but listen we do. We follow this with reports of council members.

AR-1 was the culmination of several meeting as we finalized the contract with what we call our general employees, which is not fire or police. This group received a 3% cost of living increase and a 5.5% reduction in their retirement benefit. Basically a net 2.5% reduction. We are fortunate to have our city manager leading this as all good leaders do.

AR-2 was a great report on what we are doing to support our local business. Once Governor Brown signed the legislation taking away redevelopment we have been trying to see what we do can to keep business here! Jobs are very important and the taxes that business pays help to fill a shrinking purse.

AR-3 was pulled as all of the details had not been worked out.

AR-4 was a report that .

All in all it was a short yet positive meeting.