08-23-1999 CC - Laserfiche WebLink

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should be complete prior to the approval of Ordinance 630, the overall ROW ordinance. He can discuss this further on Monday. In other news, Bill Clark started Monday as the new Police Chief. I will ask Bill to attend the opening of the Council meeting on Monday for his introduction to the community. He has been active already in getting to know people. He and I had lunch with Nick Temali of the school district today, and he has been making the rounds so far. Samanatha Orduno is returning to the area as the new city manager for Richfield. For those of you who do not know Sam, she was my predecessor here in Mounds View and has been in California for the past four years. I think she will do a fine job for a good community down there. Around here,the paving of the parking lot is still being done. We are not sure just yet when the final layer will be done and when the new intersection can be opened. Two new laptop computers are in and being configured for council member use. They should be available for two of you on Monday. Council may want to think about how best to get on line if you already are not, and who should pay for it. We have not had that discussion, but I anticipate we will need to. The weekly staff meeting this week simply centered on the budget for 2000, on which the Council will be meeting about on Monday afternoon at 4:30. Each staff member reviewed their departmental budget and any highlights. Generally, there are no significant initiatives for 2000. The biggest change in dollar amounts appear to stem from the lack of airport related expenditures. For purposes of forming up a budget, I directed a 3% adjustment in wages be included. Council will note that the maximum levy increase allowable by the state is only .93%, and is essentially the same amount of revenues over expenditures in this preliminary budget. Some issues for the Council to consider on Monday will be wages, airport related concerns,the community center transfer,the franchise fee, consideration of developing a fund for street improvements and long term cash flow trends. Staff also was introduced to Bill Clark, who already had met everyone. We also talked some about the status of the housing inspector, planner and assistant positions. Accommodating vacation schedules through the end of the year was also touched on. I attended a LMC Board session and board orientation Thursday. I was off on Tuesday on an invite from some old Benson golf friends for an annual outing of theirs, which would have been more fun if I had not come down with a cold. Cari reports her first week in St. Joe is going fine and is finding some issues remarkably similar to here. We have the new Office 2000 software loaded up now on the office computers. Council members may note some minor differences in report looks. We expect to be able to do quite a bit more with 2000 as we get to learn it, and it should integrate nicely with our web site maintenance. Have a good weekend and see you on Monday.