City Council Notes-July 16, 2013

A part of the OACCT's Public Policy efforts for 2013 is for volunteers from the Public Policy committee attend both City and County meetings and report back on items that are of interest/concern to business.

-Mayor recognized and awarded plaques for a successful Senior Games event

-Presentation and motion to award Bonds for various street, sewer and equipment purchase/projects. The rates and terms are favorable and we have maintained a Aa2 rating w/ Moodys

-We were given a legislative update which highlighted the expected stability of LGA, but there will be necessary fine tuning of the formula in the future

-Consent agenda passed without issue

-The Steele Co. Safe and Drug Free Coalition presented us with proposed changes to our policy regarding smoking in city parks.   This proposal was met with concerns over no real enforcement, inconsistency in policy application and signage concerns.  There was a motion passed to send it back to Park & Rec. to review and make some changes for possible future consideration.

-Personnel policy was updated to eliminate a program to purchase computers for city employees and allow them to reimburse the city with payments withheld from their paychecks.  This change was suggested by our auditor as it is uses public funds to essentially offer no interest loans to employees and is not a prudent use of public funds.

-There was also a resolution to bring some needed road repairs to the county's attention as they finalize their 5 year capital improvement plan.  These are county maintained roads within the city.