New Council

I apologize for the delay in getting a new post up, but here it goes…

So far, there have been two meetings with the new council and I have to say I have been pleased with the discussion so far. I was not sure what to expect. There have been a couple of items that there was disagreement. Rather than providing a generic recap of the meeting, I will focus my posts on items where the Council is divided.

First, we discussed giving non-union staff a 3% salary increase. In these economic times, that did not seem right. Every day, it seems another company is cutting jobs. Ultimately, after much discussion we decided on a 4-1 vote (Steve Rauenhorst dissenting) to give staff a 1.5% raise now and then re-look at the economic conditions by no later than June. As a reference, this is the same methodology as Elk River used. Also, one of my co-workers is on Otsego’s City Council and he told me that he thought their staff received a 2.5% raise. Looking back, however, I think I should have agreed with Steve on this one.

The second item was which paper to use as our official newspaper. Keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the content either paper does or does not publish. This designation is only for where we put our legally required notices – public hearings, special meetings, etc. The issue came up to cost versus circulation. The Star News is a free paper distributed throughout ISD 728. It cost us about $2000 more to advertise in this paper versus the Crow River News, which has a circulation of about 700 households in Rogers/Hassan and requires a $38 or so/year subscription. I sited a discussion at a Park Board Meeting, as well as my own personal experiences, with delivery issues of the Star News. Again, after much discussion we decided on a 3-2 voted (Steve Rauenhorst and I dissenting) to go with the Star News. I really could have gone either way on this, but ultimately decided to lessen the financial impact in difficult economic times. I was personally torn, as I campaigned two years ago on improving communication. At the same time, I also vowed to be fiscally responsible. It was really was not an easy decision. Let me know your thoughts – I look forward to the feedback.