Two for the price of one (Image: KELO-TV)
Not sure if you watched Erpenbach’s items she walked in at the council meeting last night (#22-23), but worth the watch (end of the meeting, FF: 1:11) The items are still not visible on the website in PDF form.
They basically are replacing Owen with two people. One as an administrative clerk and one as a legislative lobbyist for the city (legislative operations manager).
There argument is that the city clerk should only be an administrative person and not an advocate for the council, but for all citizens and A-Political.
As for what the Legislative manager is going to do is beyond me, Erpenbach says they are going to be a ‘researcher’. Something Owen also did, very well, in fact probably too well, since she often found many things we were doing incorrectly as a Home Rule city. (and you wonder why we are always getting sued).
They also want to create a operations research committee.
I still scratch my head that they fired one of the most talented and transparent people working for our city and now want to replace her with TWO people and an entire committee! But Erpenbach points out that they are actually saving money in the council’s budget. Who cares if we are saving money when we are creating more unnecessary bureaucracy.
We are going to be paying for this bad termination decision by the city council for years to come.