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- Chief Highknocker
- You aren't local until you have at least three generations in the cemetery.
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15 comments:
I don't know how to get the Chief to have an open forum type of comment area.
I attended the city council meeting on Monday night. I could not believe my ears. The Mayor indicated to the council members that he might miss some city meetings since he is the basketball coach at the school and that is a priority over the city. I was told he does not have regular hours at city hall. Just what is this man doing to earn his salary?
Who is running our city? This is scary...
December 10, 2008 10:51 AM
I have to agree...City meetings should always take priority over any other activity. Perhaps the mayor should find a replacement for his coaching position until his time in office is over with.
It is too late to "find a replacement" and would be extremely unfair to the players to do so at this time. Unfortunately, this is an issue that should have been addressed well in advance of a season that is already underway.
Give me a break people. Most of your priorities are screwed up. I've never been blessed with children, but I tell you what..that would be my priority. Congratulations Mr. Mayor, the fact that your showing the message of God, family, and then business wins my vote!
I understand the concept of God,family and then business, but you seem to be missing the point. An elected official has a responsibility to the public and their lives are no longer their own. If coaching a team interferes with important meetings, this just is not right. And yes, he is getting paid to do this job, and if he is getting paid he should be at the meetings. Period.
He is getting paid to do both- hopefully the citizens that elected him have enough confidence in him that he is able to multi-task and not let the city fall apart during basketball season....
grow up! I certainly hope this is not all you got out of attending the city council meeting!!
You hit the nail on the head. Apparently the public does not have enough confidence in him. I was not at the meeting so I don't know what else was discussed. However, I do believe that running the city should take precedence over being at a GAME. Sports are good for our youth, but in the grand scope of things, games are just that: games.
I don't know all the facts here, but it seems to me that in most of these "part time" jobs such as mayor, in small communities such as ours, the people put in more hours than they are paid for, between meetings, committee meetings, being part of other community functions, taking phone calls, correspondence, listening to constituents in the community on the street, etc... but most of us probably don't see all of those meetings or hear about all of those calls or other times he is busy with mayoral duties.
So, for right now, during season, it sounds like Chuck might miss a meeting here or there, because he is working with and coaching our community youth. I am not hearing that he does this year round or generally misses meetings.
I would hope we could give him the benefit of the doubt until he has truly given us a reason to think otherwise.
We have a mayor who also is interested in the development of our young people and does a pretty good job working with them. I think we could embrace that and support his efforts during season to do both. Soon enough, season will be over. All in all, I think it makes for a better community.
We could have way worse problems than a mayor who cares about our kids.
Nobody is putting down the mayor for caring about kids. The point is, he has taken the job of mayor without first considering that he might not have time to fulfill his duties. If I am not mistaken, the mayor earns 7 or 8 thousand dollars a year for "running" the city. That might not be a lot of money to you but it is to me, especially considering that he has no regular hours and basically attends a few meetings per month. Not to underplay the importance of the job by any means. The job is important, and the mayor should be at the meetings. The former mayor was retired and devoted a lot more time and attention to his job.
Perhaps if we subtracted $100 per meeting from the mayors salary, he would figure out a way to attend the meetings. Fair is fair.
Correct me if I'm wrong. If the City Council meetings are held second Monday of each month, then I don't see any conflict with Boys Basketaball games. So are you talking about committee meetings or what? Big deal! No need to raise the red flag. I thin the city will survive if a committee member misses a meeting. Or maybe he should change everyone's schedule to have the meeting another time?
What is the county issue of the wind energy facility? What is the probable position of the county board? For or against wind towers in county?
To the blogger that suggests we take $100 away per meeting the mayor would miss, would you then compensate him additionally whenever he has to work extra hours beyond whatever the average is?
Would you compensate him for extra time he has to be at other functions, whatever they are, or take phone calls, etc.
Jobs like these usually have lots of extra details that just don't get tied to " not keeping regular hours and showing up for a few meetings", as you suggest.
You might sit with him some time and ask him what kinds of things he does behind the scene that just don't get brought up at meetings.
You might be surprised.
No matter who the mayor is, I do think we as citizens always want to know, is the mayor getting the overall job done, and done well.
Seems like that should be the question always, as opposed to missing some meetings.
There may be other opinions about this that are different, but this is just how one taxpayer sees it.
Maybe some of you should attend our city meetings. When the budget was worked on, Donna Moore did the work. The Mayor handed the meeting over to her since he indicated he did not know much about this process. I was shocked. When the FEMA negotations were being done, Donna did this work. Donna handled the bulk of the property tax reassessment work. And no, I am not her. But I do know who really is working without pay for the City. Aldermen only get paid for council meetings which are the first and second Mondays of each month.
As citizens you should attend meetings to find out facts for yourself.
Most of the above posts are missing the point.
The point is this - what kind of message does it send out into the community when the Mayor says he's too busy to attend meetings?....it isn't about his salary, or deducting a $100 here or there. The town is in crisis. Each year our economic resources are diminishing from the previous year. Commerce stemming from tourism is at an all-time low, the community as a whole is in turmoil over issues concerning the school/courthouse etc, joblessness, our inability to attract blue-collar people into the community, our inability to sustain a commercial zone in the downtown. These are just some of the many issue that surround Green Lake. Now more than ever before we need City officials to step up to the challenge of correcting this decline in our fortune. The LAST thing we need is a Mayor saying he can't attend meetings due to basketball practice.
God help us all.
I agree with the last blog. Green Lake really is in crisis. When I suggested subtracting $100 for each missed meeting, it was simply to make a point. The fact is that the basketball games are a higher priority to Mr. Mirr than running the city.
Also, I was wondering what is up with our new tax bills? Don't get me wrong, I am delighted that my tax bill has decreased, even though my assessment increased. It makes me wonder if I was actually paying an unfair amount of taxes these past years? With all of the very valuable homes on and around this lake, why are my taxes for my little house so much? The school is sucking the blood out of us and then doing a fantastic job of screwing up our kids education. What else do my taxes pay for, the cruddy streets in this town? The parking lots that are 90% potholes? City water that I will not allow my family to drink? Even the sidewalks in this city are too narrow for two people to walk on side by side. Nice, though that there are brand new streets along Evensong way and a cul de sac that will never see houses. Nice that the school can send 5 people to New Orleans for a week and each of them stay in a private hotel room at my expense. Now Mr. Ken Bates is talking about yet ANOTHER idea, having our school become an Earth Partnership School and announces that 4 teachers are already committed to spending 9 days in training this summer to help in planning this project. Just what is this 9 day training going to cost us taxpayers? HOW MANY different schools does Ken Bates want our little school to be? It is already a charter school, an IB school, now they want it to be a vocational school, and a "Part of the Earth Partnership" school. There are 300 students in the High School, why not have 300 different schools to meet the needs of every one of these kids. How ridiculous. Get Rid of the Bums is correct, and getting rid of Ken Bates and e john tracy is a great place to start. We need qualified, professional leadership in the city and the school and chamber of commerce. Enough of the three-ring circus act.
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