City Council Meeting - Oct 28, 2008
Not much news to report last night, seeing that the key vote—a resolution to change the City’s employee compensation philosophy—was held until a later date. Showmen to the end, the Council made up for their meager legislative offering by presenting the 2008 Outstanding Achievement in Historic Preservation Awards. (Think Oscars, only with fewer second-rate Jon Stewart jokes and more awkwardness.)
REGULAR AGENDA
Resolution 37637 Authorizes the $98,000 purchase of vacant land on 6405 McKinley Ave. for Fire Station No. 15. The empty lot is adjacent to the temporary Station 15 currently in use by the Fire Department. The new location was chosen to give quicker response to Tacoma’s south side. The TFD can’t say when the new station will be put into use, as the whole department is currently undergoing several inspections as part of its re-accreditation.
Resolution 37639 Approves a pay structure concept and compensation philosophy, and authorizes the implementation of said structure for non-represented classifications. This resolution sets forward a number changes the city hopes to make to the way it pays its employees, both in terms of wages and benefits. The Council wanted to change some language to make clear that the plan specifies that both wages and benefits should hover around the 70th percentile of the market. The vote was held until a later date, most likely the Nov. 18 meeting.
And that’s all the good stuff. Not much excitement, we know, so we’ll leave you with some food for thought: by the time you read our next Council report, America will have elected its next President. Hopefully.
Filed under: City-Council, City-Council
1 comments
J John Sherman October 29, 2008
Seems-to-me that nobody cares that City of Tacoma Municipal Public Utility(s) are in the process of utility services provided ratepayer increases consideration—-a few percent increase here, a few percent increase there, and apparent the ratepayers [Citizens of Tacoma] will be paying more money for future specific defined services received from many specific Tacoma Municipal Utilities.
Even Surface Water or Storm Water is under consideration for ratepayer rate increase consideration—-for instance within the City of Tacoma has anybody seen any City of Tacoma Stormwater or Surfacewater maintenance trucks and work crews [stormwater logos for equipment and clothing] that fix the stormwater catch basins grills; as a result, so narrow bicycle tires don’t fall into the basin? Or, maybe the wastewater utility is doing double duty using wastewater people, equipment, and resource to do these maintenance activities for benefit of surface water municipal utility defined and services delivery results. And, something about the treatment future requirement applied to stormwater treatment before discharge. Clean stormwater discharge effluent into Puget Sound water bodies should be a real news subject for public presentation in-itself; it follows, we the Citizens of City of Tacoma should be informed on-hundred percent about some new technology application that is intended to be applied; as a result, will be one of the foundations upon which future stormwater utility rates will include. So, let’s all see the rest of this story now.
And, while I just think about this increased ratepayer rates proposed increasing subject matter; it just follows, who is paying for the City of Tacoma street sweepers to clean and pick-up debris on our Tacoma roadways (people, equipment, equipment maintenance, and management overhead costs)—-for instance, is this cleaning service paid for by City of Tacoma General Government using its funds and its resources or is some Tacoma municipal utility and the utility ratepayers picking up this road maintenance expense cost(s). Now that would and could lead to some interesting discussions; for example, what are utility ratepayer defined services and what is the responsibility of Tacoma General Government to fund, maintain, and accomplish? An interesting argument maybe.
So, I say there was some interesting content with Tuesday Tacoma City Council meeting presentation for some people, but maybe not most-people.