By: Shar Dimick
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
Wauseon City Council unanimously approved the motion to move forward with Fire Chief Rick Sluder’s Fire and EMS staffing proposal as recommend by the Personnel Committee at the January 5 meeting.
Council President Heather Kost gave the council an overview of Sluder’s proposal as presented to the Personnel committee. She said that the proposal includes making the two assistant fire chiefs full-time and adding four additional full-time line staff. Kost said, “In recent years we’ve doubled basically our runs for fire and EMS.” She also stated that in addition to increased runs the number of volunteer firefighter is down.
Council already approved to discontinue Lifestar as the primary employer for EMS services in 2015. Kost said that the county increased EMS funding to $488,000 from $358,800 so that money would be used to pay for the increased staff, but would still require an additional $50,000.
Law Director Thomas McWatters III said that approving the proposal is only the first step in the process and that they will work with Clemans & Nelson to draft job descriptions and compensations scales. Once drafted council would need to approve them before new personnel can be hired. After the meeting Sluder said that Lifestar is on a day-to-day contract and that we would continue to use them for EMS services until something new is in place.
Councilor Jon Schamp of the Finance Committee said that they are in the process of review the proposal to purchase/lease an ambulance and a heart monitor at an estimated cost of $225,000. He said they are determining whether the benefit/revenue from billing patients directly for EMS services outweighs the cost. A recommendation will be brought to council at later date.
In other council business, a second reading of an amendment to increase the mayor’s annual compensation rate from $12,000 to $14,000 per year starting in 2016 passed on a vote of 4-2 with Councilors Martin Estrada and Shane Chamberlin voting against. Kost asked for clarification on Chamberlin’s and Estrada’s votes as she wanted to make sure they had the information they needed. Estrada stated he didn’t think the percentage increase compared to council’s was quite right. Kost said that the Mayor of Archbold makes $15,500 and is only part-time and has an administrator.
Chamberlin asked if they were going to “berated for how they voted” and said he never has been asked on council why he has voted “no” on a motion. However, he went on to explain that he voted “no’ because the majority of the decision makers are appointed and he believes pay decisions should be made by elected officials as opposed to appointed officials.
Kost reiterated that she wanted to make sure councilors had all the information they needed because they never sat down as a group to discuss it. She said that she thought it was a fair increase and council needs to keep comparisons to other municipalities in mind when looking at the different positions.
Finally, council:
•Approved the third reading of the Solid Waste Management Plan.
•Approved the motion before to accept the JAG grant that will be used to purchase Narcan for opiate overdoses.
•Approved a motion to accept the appointments to various boards and commissions: Michael Christman, Zoning Board of Appeals; Jeff Stiriz and Jon Schamp, Charter Review Commission; Heather Kost and Rick Frey, Community Reinvestment Area Housing Council; Jon Schamp, Tax Incentive Review Council; Rick Frey and Jeff Lako, Tree Commission; Bev Meridew and Martin Estrada, Pride Wauseon Preservation and Design Review Board; and, Rebecca Martinez and Doug Vollmer, Planning Cmomission.
•Tabled the second reading of Ordinance 2014-17, which pertains to the pay scale for council on McWatters’ recommendation. He said that it had come to his attention recently that compensation for committee meetings is not pensionable. Other cities such as Archbold addressed that issue by eliminating the committee meeting amount and transferring that to the base salary. Council have an amendment in place by the next council meeting. However, they would need a special meeting to hear the third reading in order to have new ordinance in place by the state deadline of March 1, 2015.
•Councilor Rick Frey reported that the memorial trees were planted for Dorothy and Paul Lind at Reighard Park, Ray Cole at Homecoming Park, and Don Mathews at Biddle Park.
•Dennis Richardson, Director of Public Service, reported that he received contracts from Toledo Edison to extend three phase power to the Shoop Ave. water tower and is working on our final packet to certify the Linfoot St. project to ODOT so that it can be bid. Richardson said that the work on Linfoot St. is expected to begin late fall 2015 with underground work and a final completion date in late spring/early summer of 2016.
Shar may be reached at
publisher@thevillagereporter.com